Self-help for Cotton 



IN TEXAS a man is growing cotton plants that pro- 

 duce just as little cotton as possible. Practical cotton 

 planters say that Dave Killough is crazy not as crazy 

 as a loon, but crazy like a fox. 



For excellent reasons it makes sense to grow cotton 

 that produces very little white, fluffy fiber but as much 

 of the fat little seeds as possible. Because we have been 

 selling less and less cotton abroad, the surplus bales 

 have piled up higher and higher year after year. Be- 

 cause the demand for edible oil and cattle-feed meal 

 has been steadily growing, the supply of cottonseed has 

 been chronically less than could be sold. 



As the planter trucks it to the gin, cotton returns to 

 him for every five hundred-pound bale of lint, one 

 thousand pounds of seed. The market situation being 

 what it is, if a cotton plant might be developed that 

 yielded, say two hundred and fifty pounds of lint and 

 two thousand pounds of seed, lint output would be 

 halved; seed production doubled; and the thirteen mil- 



38 



