of only 60. The seed treated on February 14 was of course of better 

 qualitv than any used since. 



However, allowing that a small percentage of worms come through 

 the machine alive and supposing that a small percentage of the seeds 

 are damaged, we have then to consider, firstly, to what extent tl 

 deficiencies affect the value of the machine, and, secondly, how they 

 can be remedied. With regard to the worms it is fairly certain that 

 at present it cannot be hoped to destroy as much as 98 per cent of those 

 of the worms left in the bolls in the fields. If. therefore, US per 

 cent of those in the seed are destroyed, it should be suflicient for prac- 

 tical purposes, except when the seed is to be exported to a cotton- 

 growing country where the pink boll worm does not yet occur, in which 



a hundred per cent mortality should be insisted on. Further, with 

 regard to the seed a loss in germination of five per cent is of little 

 important- in taqwri seed so long as the jcllnh continues his present 

 methods of sowing, and in commercial seed is of no importance 



whatever. 



The machine in its present stale therefore seems to fulfil all 

 practical requirements. It may, however, be possible to improve 

 it by a comparatively simple alteration. Krom a large variet-. 

 experiments it can be said fairlv certainlv that a temperature that 

 does not kill the worms does not harm the seed. If. therefore, living 

 worms come through at the same time as damaged seed the heating 

 of the seed must be uneven. In the machine in question this may be 

 due to one or more of the following three can 



Firstlv. the seeds that come in direct contact with tli< 

 pipes may be overheated and consequently damaged. Were this the 

 correct explanation, however, one would expect to find a much la 

 proportion of the seeds damaged, as the majoritv of them must come 

 in direct contact with the steam pipes at one tune or another during 

 their passage through the machine. 



In the second place, the presence of underheated seeds, and 

 therefore of living worms, may be due to the insulating action of 

 piec.es of lint surrounding the seeds. This, however, does i, 

 very likely, from the fact that with the hot air machine erected bv 

 the Ministrv it is possible to get a regular mortality of a hundred per 

 cent. In this machine the seed is heated by a blast of hot air while 

 spread out on iron tra vs. so that one, would expect the insulating action 



