COTTON-GROWING 169 



International Seed Register and Bureau, so that pure 

 strains when once isolated shall not be left to die, 

 but shall be kept alive in small quantities of seed, 

 with accurate published descriptions of their perform- 

 ances in the conditions under which they have been 

 tested, and shall be available for multiplication and 

 further testing in any other country. The cost of such 

 an organization will be borne by the trade as a whole, or 

 by the consuming side of it alone, since it will be to the 

 advantage of the spinner, and not to that of the successful 

 grower, that such an organization should exist. At 

 present not more than one per cent, of the work done on 

 plant-breeding remains economically available. At the 

 same time such an organization would have to be run very 

 strictly, nothing but statistical evidence being admitted, 

 either for purity, cropping capacity, or spinning properties. 

 This last brings us to another probable development of 

 the future. At present it is very difficult to ascertain 

 Spinner's wna ^ * s ^ ne comparative value of any sample 

 Testing- of cotton, since there is no means of testing 

 House. raw co tton. We have seen in the preceding 

 chapter that the only test of value is the test of spinning, 

 and some persons have suggested that miniature spinning- 

 machine testers might be practicable. This is highly im- 

 probable, if not actually impossible, and in default of any 

 existing indirect methods of analysis the cotton must be 

 put through ordinary standard machinery. It is but 

 rarely that any investigator has the good-fortune to have 

 the courtesy extended to him in this respect which the 

 author has received from the Fine Spinners' Association. 



