RIO LECTURE 213 



separately the selling price would have been twice as high. It is very 

 easy in your country to separate seeds of the various types because 

 they are easily recognised, so much so that even a child could soon 

 undertake satisfactorily this kind of work. The spinners of Europe 

 continually complain that they cannot receive from Brazil uniform 

 qualities. They buy one lot of cotton and when they order the 

 " repeat " they find a great difference in first and second deliveries. 

 This lack of uniformity can only be remedied through the distribution 

 of good seed and of one type only. In order to achieve this it is abso- 

 lutely necessary to establish in each cotton zone a seed farm for the 

 production of the seed which best suits its conditions. I consider 

 that such establishments should be owned by the Federal Governments, 

 or if they belong to private parties, they must be subjected to strict 

 supervision by Government exj^erts. 



The work of producing standard varieties of seed appertains to the 

 scientific branch of agriculture and for this reason it is only in rare 

 cases that the ordinary planter can undertake this work successfully. 

 Though this may only be a simple process once the machinery has 

 been set in motion, yet it requires patience and continuity of action. 



Brazil's first requirement is plant selection, i.e., the seed must be 

 separated according to its external characteristics ; when the first 

 capsules appear those plants must be singled out which have a large 

 number of bolls and which are bearing right from the bottom 

 branches ; once the bolls open it will become necessary to inspect 

 each one of the selected trees and to ascertain the length, strength, 

 colour, etc., of the fibre. Only the seed emanating from bolls which 

 have thus been selected must be used for planting purposes in the 

 next season and thus you will be sure that the new plants will, to a 

 great extent, reproduce the good qualities selected in the previous 

 year. In this manner it will be possible to increase in a few years 

 the length of the fibre by 2 to 4 mm. as has been demonstrated in 

 other countries and also in Brazil on the plantation Salto Grande, 

 near Villa Americana, in the State of Sao Paulo. The strength of the 

 fibre and other good points can in this way be improved. 



The seed farms require to be of fair size because you wiU have to 

 produce on them sufficient seed to supply the requirements of all growers 

 of cotton in each district and being of considerable area it will be easy 

 to manage them in such a way that some financial benefit is obtained, 

 especially if mechanical means of cultivation are introduced. Seeing 

 that this work of selection must be undertaken with great care, it 

 Avill be necessary for the technical expert of the Cotton Department 

 of the Federal Government of each State to undertake it personally, 

 because it wiU depend upon his work whether the seed farm proves 

 a success or a failure. Such an official must reside on the plantation 

 and not in a town. He will also have to superintend the staff and his 

 duties will further consist in travelHng through the country, explaining 

 to the planters, small farmers, prefects and other interested parties, 

 the best way of cultivating cotton. Care must be taken that such 

 district grows only one kind of cotton in order that hybridization and 

 the mixing of seeds at the gin are made impossible. The seed farms 

 will also serve as model plantations where one may be able to ascertain, 

 not only the method of cultivation, but also the exact cost of growing. 



