34 BULLETIlSr 1111, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



COMMUNITY UTILIZATION OF VARIETIES. 



Considering that adequate supplies of pure seed are the first 

 requisite for extending the use of any superior variety of cotton, it 

 follows that any good variety must have a central localized produc- 

 tion at first, whatever the later developments. This is especially 

 necessary with varieties developed by the United States Department 

 of Agriculture, which have a serious handicap at first in the seed 

 being distributed free instead of going out as high-priced advertising 

 novelties, sold very often at several dollars a bushel. Distributing 

 the seed widely does not increase the supply, since little reliance can 

 be placed upon seed that is raised by individual farmers in mixed 

 communities unless special precautions of isolation and separate 

 ginning are taken. The fate of most varieties is that they are not 

 localized sufficiently to keep the seed pure, so that the scale of com- 

 mercial production is scarcely reached before the variety begins to 

 deteriorate. Hence, varieties of cotton are "short lived" unless a 

 basic seed stock is preserved by continued isolation and selection. A 

 variety no longer exists in a practical sense when uniformity is lost 

 and the work of selection undone. The only varieties that have been 

 useful are those that have been maintained for periods of years, in 

 most cases by the original breeders, who established centers of pro- 

 duction and seed supply in their surrounding communities through 

 the practical inducement of buying or helping to find markets for the 

 seed that their neighbors produced. 



Localization of varieties in this necessary and constructive way 

 is more common in Texas than in any of the States to the east, 

 possibly because the boll-weevil invasion reached Texas first and there 

 has been more time for readjustment. Another reason is that the 

 eastern Upland varieties are not well adapted to the Texas condi- 

 tions, so that the farmers have learned to depend on their local 

 varieties instead of bringing seed from Georgia or the Carolinas, as 

 the custom formerly was. Holding to the big-boll type of cotton has 

 rendered the Texas crop generally more uniform, and a distinct 

 market advantage is now recognized as a result. Although only a 

 few communities have as yet undertaken a strict adherence to a sin- 

 gle variety, the fiber quality and staple length of the Texas big-boll 

 varieties — Triumph, Lone Star, and Eowden — are not so different as 

 many of the varieties that are grown in other parts of the country, 

 so that the Texas crop as a whole is of more uniform quality. But 

 now it is being recognized that this advantage can be increased by 

 more definite local specialization, and many Texas communities and 

 districts are approaching the one-variety status. 



In view of the requirement of seed supplies to make utilization pos- 

 sible, it is obvious that any variety which attains prominence and 



