2 BULLETIN 533, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cotton "were brought to disaster through the destruction of cotton by 

 the boll weevil or by the loss of a market at the beginning of the 

 European war. These crises were the more acute because cotton had 

 been considered so long a safe crop and afforded new demonstrations 

 of the danger of complete reliance of any community on a single 

 crop. In California it is beginning to be understood that many com- 

 munities are devoted too exclusively to special industries and that 

 there is need of some such crop as cotton for opening the way toward 

 a safer policy of more diversified farming. 



In many of the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, 

 and America, efforts are being made to establish cotton culture as 

 colonial enterprises on a basis of permanent competition with the 

 United States. There can hardly be a question of the desirability 

 of utilizing our resources of production as far as feasible. One of 

 these undeveloped resources is the production of Egyptian cotton, 

 which experiments have shown to be possible in Arizona and Cali- 

 fornia. The need of supplementing our importations of Egyptian 

 cotton by domestic production has recently been very acute, and the 

 high prices that are now being paid are attracting public attention 

 to the possibilities of cotton growing in California. 



INCREASING DEMANDS FOR LONG-STAPLE COTTON. 



No danger of direct competition with the older centers of cotton 

 production in the Southeastern States is involved in the development 

 of cotton culture in California, for the reason that it will be so ob- 

 viously to the advantage of California to produce cotton that will 

 not need to enter into competition w T ith the South, such as the 

 Egyptian cotton, which our manufacturers are importing on a scale 

 of many millions of dollars every year. All previous records were 

 exceeded in 1916, "with importations amounting to about 350,000 

 bales, valued at more than $35,000,000. 



The rapidly increasing demand for Egyptian and other superior 

 types of cotton is due to a variety of causes, the most important 

 being, undoubtedly, the enormous proportions attained by the auto- 

 mobile tire- fabric industry and the greater attention being given by 

 manufacturers, dealers, and the public generally to the fact that 

 strength and durability of fabrics depend very largely on the quality 

 of the cotton fiber. Recognition of this fundamental fact in rela- 

 tion to automobile tires in time may be reflected in other branches 

 of the textile industry and in turn lead eventually to a general elimi- 

 nation of the enormous waste of industrial effort involved in the 

 production, manufacture, and use of weak, inferior fiber. 



New communities can secure a great advantage in the production 

 of long-staple cotton by limiting themselves to the planting of a 

 single superior variety. In the older parts of the cotton belt, where 



