COMMUNITY PRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN COTTON. 5 



American manufacturers largely as a substitute for American long- 

 staple Uplands of corresponding lengths, the substitution being 

 profitable when the price of American long-staple cottons is rela- 

 tively high. There is also a certain amount of substitution of the 

 longest Egyptian, especially of the Sakellaridis variety, for the 

 shorter lengths of Sea Island cotton, depending upon the relative 

 prices of the two types. There remains, however, a large proportion 

 of the imported Egyptian cotton for which no other fiber has yet 

 been successfully substituted. 



In view of this fact, the question has been frequently asked whether 

 Egyptian cotton could not be produced in the United States in suffi- 

 cient quantity to supply at least a part of the home demand. Condi- 

 tions which have arisen in Egypt since the first attempts were made 

 to answer this question have emphasized the importance of under- 

 taking the production of Egyptian cotton in this country. It has 

 been found that the maintenance of a uniform quality of any of the 

 Egyptian varieties is rendered precarious by the fact that in Egypt 

 distinct varieties are often grown in adjacent fields. There is also a 

 general contamination of the whole Egyptian crop with an inferior 

 and distinct type of cotton known locally as Hindi. 



These conditions make it almost impossible to maintain in Egypt 

 a supply of pure seed of a variety which has reached the stage of 

 commercial production, because all these types of cotton cross freely 

 with each other and adequate precautions are seldom taken to keep 

 the seed of the different kinds separate at the gin. Furthermore, the 

 cotton crop of Egypt suffers severely from insect enemies, notably in 

 recent years from the ravages of the pink bollworm. This pest 

 threatens a serious reduction of the crop, or at least a wide fluctua- 

 tion in total production from year to year. Thus, it appears unsafe 

 for the numerous American users of this type of cotton to depend 

 solely upon Egypt for their supply of raw material, and the desira- 

 bility of developing an independent source of supply in the United 

 States is emphasized. 



PRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN COTTON IN AMERICA. 



Although experiments with the production of Egyptian cotton in 

 the southwestern United States were begun in 1902, it was not until 

 1912 that it was deemed advisable to recommend the commercial 

 production of the crop. In the spring of that year seed was dis- 

 tributed by. the Department of Agriculture to a number of farmers 

 in the Salt River Valley in Arizona and the Imperial Valley in Cali- 

 fornia. As a result of this distribution about 480 acres of cotton 

 were brought through to harvest, and the crop of 1912 amounted to 

 375 bales of 500 pounds each. 



