156 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW COTTON 



Tn developing a new district for cotton-growing, pro- 

 vided that the economic situation is satisfactory, two 

 things are necessary. Firstly, a crop has to 



, e _. f* ure be grown in the field, and not merely in 

 of Cotton. 



gardens; secondly, the reasons for its failure 

 have to be ascertained. The author's use of the word 

 "failure" is deliberately designed to draw attention to 

 an aspect of agriculture which has not been fully viewed 

 before ; every crop is more or less a failure. More usually 

 we say that it is more or less of a success, but in the case 

 of cotton it is almost better to express it the other way. 



So long as good land in Egypt can produce a normal 

 crop of 700 pounds of lint to the acre, with an average of 

 over 450 pounds for the country, even now, while the 

 U.S.A. averages about 200 pounds, and India less than 

 100, we have a definite basis of comparison for the degree 

 of failure which we call success in cotton-growing. 



To return to our second essential, namely, a knowledge 



of the reasons for the comparative failure of the crop. 



The ^ * s bvious that a full knowledge of this 



Behaviour kind can never be obtained, and that it 



of a Crop, yfiii take years of research to provide even 

 reasonably intimate knowledge; but the immediate de- 

 mand may be put in a simpler form, to wit, " How did 

 the crop behave ?" On the surface this would seem to 

 be a childishly simple question, but it is one which no 

 cotton-grower could answer in any form giving Hhe 

 scientist information from which to draw conclusions. 

 With some crops it is a relatively simple matter to describe 

 how the yield was attained, but when the yield is being 



