118 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW COTTON 



In the year 1913 the Nile flood was later than it had 

 been for over a century, and lower also. There is there- 

 Water Table ^ ore ver y little effect visible in these curves, 

 and Lint as compared with what a normal year would 

 Quality, have shown, excepting a beneficial one due 

 to capillary damping of the supernatant soil on and after 

 September 15 (star in Fig. 15), when the effect of the 

 previous watering was dying away ; since the water-table 

 in this particular plot of the Daily Pickings did not rise 

 nearer to the surface than 1-30 metres, no very striking 

 effect could be expected so late in the year. The 1912 

 results from daily flowers were also unsuitable for 

 demonstration of the water-table effect, since wide-sown 

 cotton does not suffer nearly so much from this cause 

 as do the closely crowded plants of field crop. Neverthe- 

 less we can draw our own deductions from existing evi- 

 dence about the effects of the water-table on other growth- 

 processes in a field crop of cotton, and from what we have 

 already learned about the development of the lint, with 

 the following conclusions : 



When the water-table rises so as to immerse the lower 

 half of the root system of a field crop of cotton in Egypt , 

 the effects will show up in the following order: Bolls 

 opening ten days later will have weak but long lint, those 

 opening five weeks later will have lint both weak and 

 short, with a high ginning out-turn, and those opening 

 seven weeks later will be worthless in all respects. 



Returning now to our original statements as to the 

 possibility of growing equally good lint at any time 

 during the season until the falling autumn temperature 



