MEADE COTTON REPLACING SEA ISLAND. 19 



The following paragraphs on seed selection appear in a pamphlet 

 sent out by the United States Department of Agriculture (8) with 

 the distribution of seed : 



Unless selection is continued, the value of a variety is sure to decline. A 

 v^'ell-bred variety is superior to ordinai'y unselected cotton not only in having 

 better plants, but in having the plants more nearly alike. Whether selection has 

 any power to make better plants is a question, but there can be no doubt of the 

 power of selection to keep the plants alike. Even in the best and most carefully 

 selected stocks inferior plants will appear, and if these are allowed to multiply 

 and cross with the others the stock is siire to deteriorate. The pollen from the 

 flowers of inferior plants is carried about by bees and other insects, and the 

 seeds developed from such pollen transmit the characters of the inferior parent. 

 Even if they do not come into expression in the first generation they are likely 

 to appear in the second generation. 



To grow cotton from unselected seed involves the same kind of losses as in an 

 orchard planted with unselected seedling apple trees. Less cotton is produced 

 and the quality is also inferior. The higher the quality of the cotton the more 

 stringent is the requirement of a uniform staple. Unless the fibers have the 

 same length and strength they can not be spun into fine threads or woven into 

 strong fabrics. (PI. IX.) 



PEESEEVATION OF VARIETIES BY SELECTION. 



The method of selection to be followed in preserving a variety from deteriora- 

 tion is entirely different from that employed in the development of new varieties. 

 The breeder of new varieties seeks for exceptional individuals and prefers those 

 that are unlike any variety previously known. If the selection is being carried 

 on to preserve a variety, the object is not to secure seed from the peculiar plants, 

 but to reject all that deviate from the characters of the variety. The first 

 qualification for such selection is a familiarity with the habits of growth and 

 other characters of the variety, to enable the farmer or breeder to confine his 

 selection to the plants that adhere to the form or type of the variety and to re- 

 ject all that vary from the type. Most of the latter would prove to be very 

 inferior and at the same time would increase the diversity of the variety and 

 hasten its degeneration. 



IMPROVED METHODS OF FIELD SELECTION. 



No matter how good a new variety may be or how carefully it may have 

 been bred and selected, inferior plants are likely to appear, especially when it 

 is grown under new and unaccustomed conditions. A special effort is being 

 made to limit the distribution to seed from uniform fields of cotton, but selec- 

 tion is necessary to keep any variety from deterioration, and it is inadvisable 

 to wait until the detefioration becomes serious before beginning the selection. 

 If proper attention be paid to the Koguing out of inferior plants in the first 

 season there may be much less variation in the second, the variety becoming 

 better adjusted to the new conditions. 



As uniformity is one of the first essentials of value in a variety, the behav- 

 ior of a, new variety in this respect is one of the first things to be noted. Do 

 not wait till the crop matures, but watch the plants in the early part of the 

 season. Even before the time of flowering it is possible to distinguish " freak " 

 plants by differences in their habits of growth or the characters of their stems 

 and leaves. Whenever such variations can be detected the plants should be 

 pulled out at once in order to prevent the crossing of the good plants with infe- 



