Juty 5, 1918] 
receive army pay; he is free to accept or reject 
the training. 
Dr. Wituiam Attan Nerson was installed 
as president of Smith College on June 13. Be- 
cause of war conditions other educational in- 
stitutions were not asked to send representa- 
tives. 
B. R. BuckrycHam has been appointed head 
of a bureau of research which forms a part of 
the newly established college of education of 
the University of Illinois. 
Dr. A. R. Batmey, assistant professor of 
engineering at the University of Michigan, has 
resigned. 
Durine the past year Professor Leo F. 
Rettger, of Yale University, gave the course 
of lectures in general bacteriology at Wesleyan 
University which for many years was one of 
the regular courses conducted by the late Pro- 
fessor H. W. Conn. 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 
MEADE COTTON 
THis name has been given to a new Upland 
long-staple variety representing the nearest ap- 
proach to Sea Island cotton in length and 
fineness of fiber. The original selection was 
made in 1912 at Clarksville, Texas, in a field 
of a variety locally called “ Blackseed” or 
“Black Rattler,’ but not the same as the va- 
rieties that have borne these names in other 
parts of the cotton belt. The possibility of 
securing from this stock an Upland variety 
that would rival the Sea Island in length and 
fineness of staple appealed very strongly to 
Mr. Rowland M. Meade, at that time an assist- 
ant in cotton breeding in the Bureau of Plant 
Industry, and his enthusiasm now appears 
fully justified by the results of the work that 
he began. 
Three generations of progenies from select 
individuals had been raised and a superior 
stock had been separated before the sudden 
and untimely death of Mr. Meade at San An- 
tonio, Texas, in June, 1916, at the age of 
twenty-seven. The new variety has been 
called Meade as a tribute of personal regard of 
his associates, and to commemorate his servy- 
ices as a plant breeder. Though his work 
SCIENCE 11 
ended at an age when men are supposed to be 
prepared only to begin such investigations, he 
kad studied cotton intensively for more than 
a decade and had made notable contributions 
to our knowledge of the habits of the plant and 
to the breeding of superior varieties. 
Brief statements regarding the Meade va- 
riety have appeared in the current annual re- 
ports of the chief of the Bureau of Plant In- 
dustry and of the chief of the Bureau of 
Markets. Tests of the strength and spinning 
qualities of the fiber have given favorable re- 
sults, so that the possibility of substituting 
this type of cotton for correspanding lengths 
of Sea Island is definitely indicated. The 
length of staple equals or may slightly exceed 
much of the “mainland” Sea Island crop of 
Georgia and Florida, Meade fiber under favor- 
able conditions being usually about 14 inches, 
seldom falling below 11%, and sometimes at- 
taining 13. There is little tendency to “ but- 
terfly,” that is, to shorten the fibers at the base 
of the seed, which was one of the undesirable 
traits of the older long-staple varieties, such 
as Floradora, Sunflower and Allen. 
When compared with Sea Island in adjoin- 
ing rows or plots, the cultural superiority of 
the Meade cotton is clearly shown. It pro- 
duces earlier and more abundant flowers, the 
bolls are nearly twice as large, a heavier crop 
can be set in a short period, and the fiber ma- 
tures in advance of the Sea Island, all tend- 
ing to avoid damage by the boll weevil. Even 
when a large proportion of the buds or young 
bolls are shed, as a result of severe weevil in- 
jury or other unfavorable conditions, the 
Meade rows often yield two or three times as 
much as the Sea Island. And since buyers 
are accepting the Meade fiber as practically 
equivalent to the Sea Island the advantage to 
the farmer is clear. Some of the 1917 crop 
of Meade cotton was sold for 73 cents on the 
Savannah market. 
Substitution for the Sea Island is also fa- 
cilitated by the fact that the seeds of the 
Meade cotton do not have a dense covering of 
fuzz like most of the Upland varieties, but are 
naked on the sides like the seeds of the Sea 
Island and Egyptian cotton, so that it is pos- 
