21 



V. 



With such an organization the maintenance of purity in the seed 

 supply up to the stage when issue is first made to the public should not 

 offer any great difficulty. We have now to consider the organization 

 required for the further multiplication of that seed. It is here that 

 the work of the Commercial Section will commence. Such a section 

 is already in existence, but its activities have been confined to the 

 supply of seed to the smaller cultivator, and in 1919 approximately 

 thirty per cent of the cotton area was sown to seed so issued. Effective 

 though that organization appears to be, it does not strike at the root 

 of the problem. The seed is sown under no control, and is of little 

 or no value in increasing the supply of purer seed. Many of the larger 

 cultivators, too, appear to be as careless as the smaller in this matter. 

 It is immaterial whether the cause is ignorance or economic pressure, 

 the effect is the same. Some more general control of the seed supply 

 is needed, and such control must avoid the assumption by Government, 

 as represented by the Ministry, of the function of a general dealer in 

 seed. It would appear possible, by working along the lines indicated 

 below, which are the outcome of conversations held by me in 

 Alexandria, to evolve a workable scheme which will ensure a certain 

 standard of seed and, at the same time, provide the means of working 

 up as far as may be necessary, while maintaining purity, the seed 

 of the races which find their origin in the work of the Botanical 

 Section. 



The agricultural organization, as we have traced it, gives a seed 

 supply sufficient to sow 500 acres. Allowing a margin for cases in 

 which doubt attaches, the circle officer should be able to recover seed 

 sufficient to sow 4,000 acres in the succeeding year-. He will be able 

 to locate the fields planted to that seed, but it will be beyond his means 

 to recover the seed. Were he now to notify the ginners of the names 

 of these growers, with the area grown by each, it should be possible 

 to intercept a fair proportion of the crop so grown as it comes into the 

 ginneries, and, by arrangement with the ginner, this could be ginned 

 and the seed kept separate. Such seed will now receive a Government 

 mark indicating that it is passed as taqdwi. I am here making various 

 assumptions ; I assume an intimate local knowledge on the part of 

 the circle officer which will enable him to select reliable men ; I assume 

 the form that reliability takes will include a willingness to deal with 

 the ginner selected ; and I assume the existence of ginners who 

 appreciate the importance of a guarded seed supply sufficiently to 

 take the necessary trouble. From what I have been able to gather 



