PRODUCTION OF AMERICAN EGYPTIAN COTTON. 15 



there regarding' the outlook for commercial production and the meth- 

 ods of growing the crop. They were therefore ready to adopt the 

 point of view of the department, and in- the spring of 1912 about 30 

 farmers in the vicinity of Mesa organized an association. In the 

 following year similar organizations were formed at Chandler and 

 Tempe. Finally, in the spring of 1914, a central organization, 

 known as the Salt River Valley Egyptian-Cotton Growers' Asso- 

 ciation was formed, with the Mesa, Chandler, and Tempe associations 

 as its constituent members. The central organization was designed 

 to look after the marketing of the crop and the maintenance of a 

 supply of pure seed for the entire valley, while the local organiza- 

 tions continued to provide for the ginning of the cotton grown by 

 their members and for financing the crop during the growing period. 



The Mesa and Tempe associations now operate well-equipped gin- 

 ning plants. The gin at Chandler has been leased and operated by 

 a private company, and there is also a privately owned ginning plant 

 at Phoenix. Additional gins have been built recently at these and 

 other points in the Salt River Valley by a corporation which manu- 

 factures automobile tires and which has bought or leased extensive 

 tracts of land for the growing of Egyptian cotton. 



During the present year cooperative associations of Egyptian- 

 cotton growers have been organized on the Yuma Reclamation Proj- 

 ect, in the Imperial Valley, and in Fresno County, Cal. 



It is not likely, nor is it necessary to the success of the industry, 

 that all of the growers in a community will become active members 

 of the cooperative growing and marketing associations, but it is of 

 the utmost importance that all should adhere to the policy of the 

 organizations as regards the production of a single variety and the 

 use of carefully selected seed. The commercial reputation of the 

 cotton produced in the region and hence the best interests of every 

 individual cotton grower can be secured only by this means. 



LABOR FOR PICKING. 



From the beginning of the experiments with Egyptian-cotton pro- 

 duction in the Southwest it has been realized that the high cost of 

 picking would be one of the most difficult problems to overcome. 

 Hand labor is neither abundant nor cheap in these southwestern irri- 

 gated districts, yet a cheap and abundant supply of hand labor has 

 generally been regarded as essential to successful cotton production. 

 Picking Egyptian cotton requires greater care and is more expensive 

 than picking Upland cotton, owing to the smaller size of the Egyp- 

 tian bolls and the necessity of avoiding an admixture of such trash as 

 leaves and pieces of bolls. In picking long-staple cotton it is espe- 

 cially important to keep the seed cotton clean ; otherwise the grade of 



