46 BULLETIN 1111, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



vantages. For Hunt County alone it was figured several years ago 

 that replacing other varieties with Lone Star increased the returns 

 to the farmers by about $700,000 in a single season. 



The importance of maintaining and utilizing the variety by keep- 

 ing up the supplies of good seed is so well appreciated in the com- 

 munity of Greenville that a tract of 60 acres of typical black-land 

 soil was secured and made available for the use of the seed-breeding 

 station, under cooperative arrangements with the Chamber of Com- 

 merce of Greenville. 



Selection of the Lone Star variety is being maintained on the 

 basis of pedigreed progeny stocks, with the cooperation of many 

 farmers. Owners of the farms surrounding the seed-breeding station 

 have agreed to plant only the Lone Star cotton or some variety 

 recommended by the station, so that the basic stocks of the variety 

 can be protected from contamination. 



Another center of Lone Star seed production is being developed in 

 southern Texas, around Tivoli and Austwell, in Refugio County, 

 north of Corpus Christi, with precautions of continued selection, 

 roguing, isolation from other cotton, and separate gins where this 

 variety is handled exclusively. With these precautions extended 

 over large acreages, high-quality planting seed can be made available 

 in carload lots to other districts. 



In the spring of 1920, after all the stocks of good seed in northern 

 Texas had been exhausted, a carload of seed from Austwell was 

 ordered by express for growers of the Lone Star variety around 

 Greenville, in order to replant their cotton, which had been destroyed 

 repeatedly by bad weather. In addition to the price of the seed, 

 the growers paid $800, or 75 cents a bushel, in shipping charges 

 to get the seed promptly and avoid the necessity of using inferior 

 seed or sacrificing the crop. That the seed was obtainable in 

 southern Texas appeared very fortunate, to avoid a still more seri- 

 ous impairment of supplies of good Lone Star seed around Green- 

 ville as a result of very bad seasons in 1919 and 1920. The lesson 

 of such an emergency is that dependence should not be placed upon 

 any single district to furnish all the supplies of good seed of any 

 important variety, but many communities, preferably in distant re- 

 gions, should maintain supplies of pure seed that can become avail- 

 able when needed. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



How to preserve and utilize superior varieties of cotton is a prob- 

 lem worthy of scientific study, no less than the methods of developing 

 varieties by breeding and selection. In most of our cotton-growing 

 communities varieties are not preserved or utilized properly and are 

 subject to rapid deterioration as a result of frequent buying of new 



