4 BULLETTN' 1111, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



varieties needed only to be bred and distributed to the farmers, but 

 experience showed that further attention must be given if varieties 

 are to be preserved and utilized. Certainly no adequate utilization 

 is to be expected under a system of production that mixes the varie- 

 ties together, so that the work of selection is immediately undone 

 as soon as commercial production begins. 



The damage to the industry that might be charged every year 

 to the lack of good seed and the resulting failure to utilize fully the 

 resources of production that are applied to cotton would amount 

 to hundreds of millions of dollars. Replacement of the present 

 inferior mixed stocks by superior uniform varieties would give a 

 direct gain of at least 10 per cent in quality and as much more in 

 yield. Another 10 per cent increment might be expected from cul- 

 tural improvements that are more feasible in one-variety communi- 

 ties, while advantages from community handling and marketing of a 

 standardized product would not be less important than the other 

 items, and the sale of pure seed is a further resource of one-variety 

 communities. In returns or profits for the farmer, our present 

 unorganized production of cotton may have only a 50 per cent 

 efficiency as compared with what might be found possible if improved 

 varieties and methods were regularly used in organized one- variety 

 communities. The general waste of labor and resources of produc- 

 tion in the eastern cotton belt contrasts painfully with the one-variety 

 communities of the Salt Eiver Valley of Arizona, where the Pima 

 variety of Egyptian cotton is grown exclusively and the advantages 

 of community organizations are beginning to be realized. 



Nobody who considers the possibility of community organization 

 of the cotton industry will doubt that the same land and labor can 

 be made to produce more and better cotton under community con- 

 ditions. From the standpoint of utilization of improved varieties 

 and methods it becomes apparent that a faulty organization of the 

 industry, or lack of organization, now interferes with the general 

 application of practical results of scientific investigation. Since 

 there is no question that production should be based on superior 

 varieties, an expedient that would make this possible is worthy of 

 the consideration of those who are interested in or responsible for the 

 progress of the cotton industry. The one-variety plan seems funda- 

 mental because it is the only way that has been suggested for main- 

 taining supplies of good seed, that are an absolute requirement for 

 any general or well-established improvement of production. That 

 it is difficult for communities to agree, and possible for a persistently 

 careless or obstinate farmer to interfere with the progress of his 

 neighbors and contaminate their seed stocks by refusing to plant a 

 superior variety, is the most serious objection advanced thus far, 

 but the existence of such obstacles only shows the need of more in- 



