REGIONS AND HUMAN ECOLOGY 13 



cipal commercial types are recognized at Liverpool." 1 

 In the United States are grown three principal types: 

 1. Sea Island, staple 1% to 2 inches in length, produced 

 on the average about 100,000 bales annually, principally 

 on the coast of South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. 

 This crop has been ruined by the boll weevil and in 1920 

 amounted to less than two thousand bales. 9 In 1926 Shep- 

 person's Cotton Facts noted: "The only mention of Sea 

 Island Cotton is to the effect that its cultivation has 

 practically disappeared," since the area fitted for it has 

 been completely overrun by weevil. 2. Upland long staple 

 with a length of 1% to 1%, ranges about 1,500,000 bales 

 per year, and sells up to 60 per cent higher than mid- 

 dling. 3. Upland short stapling is the standard "Ameri- 

 can Middling," % to 1 inch, which furnishes 92 per cent 

 of the cotton crop. 10 



CLIMATOLOGY OF COTTON PRODUCTION 



Although a native of the tropics, the cotton plant has 

 become best adapted to the mildly tropic South. In the 

 tropics it was a perennial; in the temperate climates it 

 has become an annual. The limiting factors are climate, 

 rainfall, and topography, with soil as a factor of lesser 

 importance. 11 Cotton demands first of all a two-hundred 

 day growing season, free of frost. This line is rather 

 definite and follows the average summer temperature of 

 77 degrees closely. 12 The Cotton Belt has a rainfall al- 

 most twice as great as that of Illinois or New York. The 



8 "Cotton," Atlas of American Agriculture, Part V, Sec. A, p. 5. 

 (This will hereafter be referred to as Cotton Atlas.) 



9 "The Cotton Situation," p. 329. 10 Cotton Atlas, p. 3. 

 11 Baker, op. cit., p. 65. 12 Cotton Atlas, p. 9. 



