ONE-VARIETY COTTON COMMtJNITlES. 21 



Stabilized community production of the best variety that can be 

 grown under the local conditions is the ideal that should not be 

 sacrificed to curiosity or casual interest in untried novelties, even 

 though vividly advertised. Testing new sorts is important, of course, 

 so that no really valuable improvements may be overlooked, but not 

 many farmers can observe the precautions that are necessary to 

 secure definite determinations of relative values of varieties. Even 

 the agricultural experiment stations find this a difficult problem, 

 requiring several years to reach reliable results. Seed from test 

 plantings is worthless, on account of the crossing that usually takes 

 place, so that the experimental farmers often injure their own crops. 

 When the real issues are understood, a farmer who plants an un- 

 known variety of cotton will be considered as erratic as one who 

 would raise a dangerous weed in his garden or try casual experiments 

 with foreign pests or diseases. 



To begin a new community, the best seed that is obtainable should 

 be brought in from some district where selection and isolation have 

 been maintained to guard the purity and uniformity of the stock. 

 With the same precautions continued for a few years under the 

 local conditions, the home-grown seed is likely to be found dis- 

 tinctly better than any that can be had from other districts. A 

 special value is indicated for selection under local conditions in 

 giving a better adjustment or more uniform expression of the de- 

 sirable characters of a variety, in contrast with the greater vari- 

 ability that often is shown in stocks that are planted for the first 

 time under new conditions. Experiments show that selection for 

 local adjustment is needed to render the varieties more fully adapted 

 to the local conditions, as indicated by the fact that larger yields 

 have been secured from locally selected strains than from seed of 

 the same varieties brought from other districts in cases where care- 

 ful comparisons are made. Further examples of local adjustment 

 have been published recently from experiments in North Carolina 

 and Mississippi.® 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF ORGANIZATION. • 



Many different forms of organization may be expected to develop 

 to serve various local needs under the general purpose of com- 

 munity improvement of cotton production. Large properties that 

 have their own gins and handle their seed stocks carefully may estab- 

 lish one-variety community conditions by adopting this as a prin- 

 ciple of management, or neighboring estates may adopt such a 

 policy and make it effective through ownership or control of a 



6 Brown, H. B. Why not plant home-grown sotton seed? In Prog. Parmer (Miss. 

 VaUey ed.), v. 36, no. 14, p. 391. 1921. 



