SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



cotton research work in Texas, from plant breeding to 

 dyeing textiles. It takes a fast-moving man with a wide- 

 ranging mind to handle that kind of an assignment and 

 John Leahy meets the specifications. He is shortish and 

 baldish, as alert as a chipmunk, with the courage and 

 tenacity of a pit bull terrier. Born on a cotton planta- 

 tion in Arkansas, he was trained in chemistry at the 

 University of Mississippi and has a life-long experience 

 less than forty years long in cotton and chemistry. 



Leahy believes that Texas cotton is the crux of the 

 cotton problem the biggest sectional crop, grown at 

 lowest cost, short-staple in grade; formerly ninety per 

 cent exported, now glutting our market and he is en- 

 thusiastic for cottonseed as the solution. Naturally he 

 likes Killough's cottonless cotton. He even talks about 

 cotton as a grain crop, which he adds slyly is "food for 

 thought for a lot of people." Assuredly cotton-for-seed 

 would be a brand new crop. 



"Cotton growers never have had any sense of the 

 value of seed," Leahy protests. "They take a three- 

 dollar-a-bale credit for it on their ginning bills and 

 call it a day. As a result, the cotton crop has been 

 hitched to the textile industry, and when we talk of 

 diversifying Southern farming why don't we begin by 

 diversifying the cotton crop? We could learn from the 

 soybean farmers. They have whooped up their bean 

 till the whole country thinks it is an agricultural mir- 



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