Cotton 337 



495. Characters Considered in Selecting Seed. As 



a flower is produced at every node on fruiting branches, 

 it is plain that branches with short internodes will form 

 flowers more rapidly than branches with long internodes, 

 and short jointedness is therefore an indication of a 

 tendency to rapid fruiting. In some plants the first 

 fruiting branches are formed early and close to the ground, 

 but in others later and higher up on the stem. We can 

 thus see that the latter type of stalk would be late in 

 beginning to form fruits, and the former early. Again, 

 in some varieties we find that the fruiting branches are 

 short, and cease to lengthen after forming just a few 

 nodes. Such branches are said to have a determinate 

 growth. In others the branches continue to grow and 

 flower thruout the season, and are described as continuous 

 growing or fruiting branches. As the fruiting period is 

 limited by the length of the growing season, it is desirable 

 to select seed from plants that begin to fruit early, fruit 

 rapidly and continuously. Such plants produce larger 

 crops than stalks with opposite characters. The method 

 of selecting high yielding strains is similar to the plan of 

 improving corn by the ear-to-row test. 



496. The Size of the Bolls, and the character of the 

 opened burrs are closely associated with the earliness of 

 maturity, difficulty of picking, and resistance to weather 

 damage or "storm proof" quality. Burrs of large bolls 

 are more storm proof than those of small bolls, and they 

 are a great advantage in picking, for it is easier to pick a 

 pound of cotton when the bolls average 40 to 60 to the 

 pound, than in cotton where 120 to 150 are required. 

 Each boll has usually 4 to 5 cells in which the locks or 

 lint bearing seeds are produced. 



497. Species and Varieties. There are a number of 



