PLANT BREEDING 35 



that some stalks produced more lint than others and of a better quality, while 

 some had hardly any as the seed was black and lintless, and these, of course, 

 had their influence on the plants around. I began to think that if one could 

 get rid of those black and lintless seeds it would be a great improvement in 

 the cotton. (Lintless seeds bear the same relation to cotton as barren stalks 

 do to corn. W. F. M.) But upon noticing more closely I found several 

 varieties of cotton in the same field. Some was storm proof, while in others 

 the cotton would fall from the boll in the least shower of wind or rain. In 

 1897, while picking cotton, I found a variety which suited me better than any 

 I have ever seen, as it produces more and larger bolls and lint of a superior 

 quality, being long and fine and the seed of small size. When the season was 

 over I had fifty pounds of seed cotton of this variety. I took it to my ginner 

 and gave him the lint to take the seed out clean and separately. He cleaned 

 his gin of all seed that was in it, and fed it through by hand, so that I had a 

 bushel of clean seed to take home. In the spring this was planted on an 

 acre, well cultivated and thinned to eighteen inches apart in three-foot rows. 

 It made a rank growth and we had to lay it by the last of June, as it was 

 then too rank to get through. When fall came it was a pleasant sight to look 

 upon, the stalks averaging 40 to 50 bolls and some as many as 80 well devel- 

 oped bolls ; and would pick nearly a pound of cotton. I cleaned 1,000 pounds 

 of lint from that acre and got seed enough to plant my entire crop the 

 following year. I sold no seed that year. One of my neighbors contended 

 there was nothing in selected seed and I gave him a bushel of my seed, which 

 he planted in the middle of his field with mixed varieties on either side, to give 

 it a fair test ; when fall came he was thoroughly convinced, as the selected 

 seed made double the crop of the mixed seed on the same ground. I make 

 35 to 50 per cent, more cotton than with mixed and unselected seed." 



These items of experience, from practical cotton growers, show plainly 

 that there is no crop more amenable to improvement than the cotton crop, 

 if the seed is wisely selected. If every grower of cotton would take the same 

 pains the crop could easily be doubled without any increase of acreage, and 

 there would be more profit at low prices than there is now at fair prices. 

 Since the price of cotton in this country is almost entirely dependent upon 

 the size of the crop, and a large crop is apt to run the price down to 

 a point at which a careless grower finds no profit, it is evident that if a care- 

 ful man, by intelligent selection of seed, can double the product of his area, 

 the selection is well worth looking after. 



But, as we have said, any selection for the improvement of the product 

 must take into consideration the whole plant and its surroundings. The 

 habit of the plant has a great deal to do with the size and character of the 



