MEADE COTTON EEPLACING SEA ISLAISTD. 9 



the first of November, while less than TO per cent of his Sea Island 

 crop had matured at that date. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MEADE COTTON IN 1917 AND 1918. 



During the 1918 season additional data were acquired on the 

 relative earliness of the Meade compared with other varieties that 

 showed this cotton to be not only much earlier than the Sea Island, 

 but as early as any of the short-staple varieties now being grown in 

 the Southeastern States. 



At the Bui-eau of Entomology station near Madison, Fla., in a 

 district of heavy weevil infestation, tests were conducted under the 

 direction of Mr. G. D. Smith with several varieties of cotton, in- 

 cluding the Meade, King, Express, Webber, and others, besides 

 several strains of Sea Island cotton that had been bred especially for 

 earliness. Flower counts were made daily from June 11, the date 

 of the first flower which appeared on that day in both the Meade 

 and King rows, until August 5, when flowering had practically 

 ceased on all varieties. 



The results showed that the Meade variety was as early in produc- 

 ing flowers as any of the short-staple varieties and much earlier than 

 any of the long staples, including the early Sea Island strains. Mr. 

 Smith also reported high yields for the Meade and superiority in 

 both length and abundance of fiber over all the long staples, in- 

 cluding the special Sea Island strains. 



At Brooks ville, Fla., a count was made of the flowers produced 

 each day from June 24 to July 3 on eight rows of Sea Island and 

 eight rows of Meade, each 150 feet long. The Sea Island rows aver- 

 aged 78.7 flowers and the Meade 163.3 flowers per row per day. The 

 Sea Island jdelded 10.3 pounds of seed cotton and the Meade 28.3 

 pounds per row. 



Prof. Loy E. Rast, of the Georgia State College of Agriculture, ob- 

 tained some very interesting data in 1917 and 1918 on the comparative 

 yields of Sea Island and Meac|,e cotton (9) . A review of the more im- 

 portant data reported by Prof. Rast may be summarized as follows : 



The Meade cotton was planted along with 37 other varieties at the station 

 in 1917 and ranked No. 1 when the total value of both seed and lint were con- 

 sidered, on a basis of 2,039 pounds of seed cotton per acre, or 693 pounds of 

 lint, worth $509.35, and 1,346 pounds of seed, containing 24.27 per cent of oil, 

 making it worth $84.34 per ton, or $56.76 for the seed produced. The total value 

 of the crop, therefore, was $566.11 per acre. 



A similar test conducted in 191S by Prof. Rast showed that this variety again 

 ranked first among 38 varieties tested, the total yield of seed cotton being 1,604 

 pounds, which gave 465 pounds of lint, valued at that time at. 70 cents a pound, 

 or $325.50. The 1,139 pounds of seed contained 23.13 per cent of oil, making 

 it worth $81.31 per ton, or $46.30 per acre. The total value of the cotton and 

 seedj tlierefore, was $371.80 per acre. 

 74463°— 22 2 



