18 



GUAM AfJRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



two ears per stalk give inferior corn. It is believed that the yield 

 per acre will be greatly inci-eased by improved cidtnral methods, but 

 aside from this no special efforts toward increasing yields will be 

 made at present, as it is desired to first ol)tain a uniform, one-ear-to- 

 the-stalk, early maturing corn. From the second crop of the past 

 year good ears were selected from plants meeting the reqvurements, 

 and these were planted June 15 by the ear-to-row method. (PL III, 

 fig. 1.) 



COTTON EXPERIMENTS. 



It is not uncommon to see cotton plants growing wild around the 

 houses of Guam natives. This type is not valued for cotton produc- 

 tion, but for ornamental purposes. An examination of the plant indi- 

 cates that it is probably the so-called tree cotton {Gossyplum arho- 

 renm). 



In the southern portion of the island in particular Sea Island 

 cotton {(lofisj/pium harhadcnse) is found growing on different 

 ranches in an apparently wild state. It appears that this plant 

 was introduced into Guam years ago and that an attempt was made 

 to grow cotton extensively, but the labor problem forced those inter- 

 ested in the project to abandon it. Observations as to the production 

 and the quality of fiber of the few plants growing in the above sec- 

 tion would indicate the adaptability of Sea Island cotton to Guam, 

 but the data obtained at the station go far to show the inferiority of 

 that type to the Egyptian type under the soil and climatic conditions 

 of the island. 



During the past dry season the station tested several cotton varie- 

 ties, and Avhile most of the cottons did fairly well, it should be men- 

 tioned that the seed, except in the case of the Egyptian and the (Co- 

 lumbia, a long-staple American Upland, both of which came from 

 Hawaii, was not received from the United States sufficiently early 

 to plant the crop at the most favorable time, about December 1. The 

 following table gives the yields per acre of seed cotton produced by 

 the different varieties: 



Yields of tijpcs and varieties tested. 



