60 FIELD CROPS FOR THE COTTON-BELT 



67. Testing transmitting power of plants. A good 

 plant must possess the important property of transmitting 

 its desirable qualities to its progeny. To determine what 

 plants .possess this property requires a field test. The 

 seeds from each select plant should be grown in a row to 

 themselves by the method known as the " plant-to-row " 

 method. For this test select a uniform plot of soil that is 

 representative of the soil upon which the general crop is 

 to be grown. 



The above plot should be isolated, if possible, 600 to 

 800 feet from any other cotton field. The object of this 

 isolation is to prevent the crossing of inferior cottons 

 with the selections. It is especially important that this 

 test plot be a reasonable distance from cotton of a differ- 

 ent variety. Sometimes the test plot is located in one 

 corner of a field planted with seed of the same variety 

 from which the selections were made. This should be 

 done only when isolation is impossible. 



The plot should be well prepared and fertilized if neces- 

 sary. As each selection is planted in a row to itself, a 

 stake bearing the same number as the plant from which 

 the seed was taken should be driven at the end. The 

 rows should be of equal length and should, as nearly as 

 possible, contain the same number of plants. A method 

 highly recommended is to plant the seed in hills about 

 20 inches apart, about a half dozen seeds being dropped 

 in a hill. Later the plants are thinned to one plant in a 

 hill. The same cultivation and care should be given this 

 test plot as is given the general crop. 



68. Selecting the best progenies. Just before the 

 first picking the test plot should be carefully gone over 

 and a detailed study made of the different progenies. 

 The most important problem now is to determine which 



