ORGANIZATION OF SWINE-BREEDING. 423 



by Ibe cultivator to the !New Orleans cotton-exchange, and after exam- 

 ination by the committee on classification and quotations, the opinion 

 was expressed that "the staple is long and siiky, strongly resem- 

 bling sea-island, which renders it superior to any cotton hitherto grown 

 on uplands." This sample was raised on soil characterized as " poor 

 pine- woods." 



A planter in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, says that this cotton, on 

 good pine- wood land, well manured, will make from 800 to 1,200 pounds 

 to the acre of seed-cotton, and will average about 200 pounds in lint. 

 He says that, compared with upland, it is more ditiicult to pick, the boll 

 being small and jiointed, but ; commanding a price per pound at least 

 three times greater, the extra trouble is lost sight of. 



Mi\ W. Spillman, of Clark County, Mississippi, sends a very beauti- 

 ful specimen of Tahiti, raised from seed furnished by the Department, 

 and says : 



The seed was planted April 22, in asli-coloved pine "woodland, well subsoiled and but 

 lightly fertilized, and will yield, the present year, notwithstanding the past sis weeks' 

 drought and the caterpillar, at the rate of five hundred pounds to the acre. If planted 

 early, and on productive sandy laud, it will make an equal yield to that of the ordinary 

 short-liut cotton. It does not mature as early as the common cotton, but appears to 

 stand dry, hot weather much better. 



Of this cotton Mr. B. E. Cockrill, of Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, 

 Arkansas, says: 



It is sea-island cotton, and resembles your samples from oft" the coast of Georgia, on 

 the Atlantic, though in a higher latitude. The fiber is very fine and the cotton ia 

 a short and distiuct staple. Loug staples do not succeed in this latitude. The bolls 

 of this variety are small, and the cotton matures very late here, or may not mature at 

 all in ordinary seasons. * * ■' For short-staple cotton in our latitude, or in any 

 part of the cotton-belt of the United States, except the islands, the multiboU seed is 

 most available and most valuable. 



Mr. Dupuy, of Louisiana, says that the cotton from the islands is 

 much lighter in weight, but longer in staple and not of equal whiteness 

 or strength with the common short-staple cotton raised in the South. 



The experiments thus far reported go to shovr that this variety of cot- 

 ton is worth further testing, and that it may prove a valuable substitute 

 for some of the sorts which have in our southern latitudes materially 

 degenerated. The fact of cotton-seed deterioration being so well estab- 

 lished, it is clearly the duty of the Department to ascertain what sorts 

 are well calculated to take the place of seeds little to be relied upon. 

 The eftbrt to afford this supply wdl be persevered in. It is hardly nec- 

 essary to call the attention of planters to the importance of making 

 the fairests tests of the seed supplied them. 



ORGANIZATION OF SWINE-BREEDINO. 



The business of swine-breeding in this country has generally been 

 conductt?d in an unmethodical and unscientific manner. The magnitude 

 of the business, which flourshes here in the home of the maize-plant as 

 nowhere else, has, indeed, stimulated gradual improvement in thriftiness 

 and a profitable symmetry of form ; but there has been lacking that per- 

 sistent care and determined adherence to the principle of breeding 

 which have rendered so successful the best efforts in establishing the 

 most popular existing breeds of cattle. 



There are skillful breeders of swine, who have for some time past felt 

 the necessity for organization for consultation, the establishment of facts 



