SEED SELECTION OP EGYPTIAN COTTON. 6 



usually strongly prepotent ; that is to say, they produce very uniform 

 progeny. 



The origin of new varieties by mutation must not be confused 

 with the improvement of an existing variety by selection. The so- 

 called Assil cotton, which is attracting much attention in Egypt, is 

 apparently an example of the latter process, having been developed 

 by simply selecting the plants of Mit Afifi having the most abundant 

 lint. In all essential characters Assil is still Mit Afifi, although 

 constituting a superior strain of that variety. On the other hand, 

 Jannovitch, Nubari, and Sakellaridis are totally distinct varieties, 

 easily distinguishable by the characters of the plants and the fiber. 



Until quite lately very little was done in Egypt to keep the different 

 varieties from intercrossing. In addition to the presence of a half 

 dozen commercial varieties, the country is full of an inferior type 

 known as weed cotton, or " Hindi," producing scanty, weak, short 

 fiber, which is white, like American Upland, rather than buff or 

 cream colored, as in most Egyptian varieties. The Hindi plants, 

 unless removed from the fields before they begin to blossom, readily 

 cross with the Egyptian, and the result is a multitude of worthless 

 and often nearly sterile hybrids. 



The recently established Egyptian department of agriculture is 

 striving to induce the growers to practice seed selection on their 

 farms, but thus far the only remedy for the bad effects of all this 

 mixing has been to sort the cotton by hand, picking out the masses 

 of white Hindi fiber. This practice is rendered economically possible 

 only by the cheapness of labor in Egypt. 



PLANT-BREEDING WORK IN ARIZONA. 



Twelve years ago the United States Department of Agriculture 

 imported seed of the principal Egyptian varieties of cotton and began 

 testing them in Arizona. The Mit Afifi having given better results 

 than any other variety then at hand, the work was continued with 

 this type alone. By dint of selection for five or six years some prog- 

 ress was made in increasing the yield and earliness of the plants and 

 the abundance, length, and strength of the fiber. Yet until 1908 the 

 results were not very encouraging. In that year the appearance 

 of a superior type, very distinct from Mit Afifi in all of its charac- 

 ters, offered a promising basis for the establishment of Egyptian 

 cotton in Arizona. 



This new type, distinguished from Mit Afifi by its relatively large 

 bolls and long, cream-colored fiber, is the Yuma variety, which is 

 now being grown in the Salt River Valley. It resembles the Nubari 

 variety, which appeared in Egypt at about the same time, in the 

 shape of the leaves, bracts, and bolls, but is superior in the staple and 



