32 ESTABLISHMENT OE A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 



creation of wealth that comes in this way. Ten years ago five mem- 

 bers of our bureau took up the problem of finding a satisfactory 

 method of growing Egyptian cotton in this country. Up to that 

 time no Egyptian cotton had been grown in this country success- 

 fully; and in 1910 the first bale of Egyptian cotton was laboriously 

 harvested and baled in Arizona, the very first one ever grown in 

 America. Remember that there is no tariff protection on cotton and 

 that the freight rates from Arizona to the New England mills are 

 about the same as those from Alexandria to the same mills, and that 

 the labor charges are ten times as high in Arizona as in Egypt. 

 Nevertheless, by scientific investigation of cultural methods, and by 

 the breeding of better types of Egyptian cotton, and by the close 

 organization of the farmers this industry has grown from noth- 

 ing 10 years ago until in 1919 the cotton crop from the Salt River 

 Valley of Arizona was worth over $20,000,000. This is almost en- 

 tirely new wealth ; it is not merely the substitution of other crops 

 by cotton, but immense new areas — in one case 10,000 acres in one 

 field — were reclaimed from the desert, irrigated, and planted to 

 Egyptian cotton. 



The Chairman. You mean our southern cotton would not have 

 grown out there in Arizona? 



Mr. Swingle. Our Egyptian cotton does not grow where the 

 southern cotton does, and it is used for a different purpose ; it is 

 used largely in the manufacture of automobile-tire fabric. 



The Chairman. You could not grow our southern cotton in Ari- 

 zona \ 



Mr. Swingle. It can be grown only at very great disadvantage. 



The Chairman. It is not profitable to raise it? 



Mr. Swingle. It is not profitable to raise it. 



I have made a calculation which shows that the income tax returned 

 to the Federal Government from the Egyptian cotton industry in 

 Arizona and California is about twenty times what this investigation 

 cost, to say nothing about the benefits to the States and counties and 

 individuals themselves. In other words, the chief end of these inves- 

 tigations by the Department of Agriculture is the securing of useful 

 crop plants and the breeding of varieties properly adapted to the soil 

 and climatic conditions: and Inning, as we do, every range of soil 

 and climate, it is hopeless to expect the old-time crops of northwestern 

 Europe to be satisfactory; and I believe it is a matter of the most 

 vital importance for the future that there be maintained in Wash- 

 ington a suitable central place where plants can be grown and flow- 

 ered, which will be afforded under the new project. 



The Chairman. What other instance did you have in mind besides 

 Egyptian cotton? You said you were going to give us. several in- 

 stances. 



Mr. Swingle. Take the case of the navel orange. In 1871 Mr. 

 Saunders, in charge of the greenhouses of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, brought from Bahia. Brazil, a famous orange known as the 

 Bahia navel orange. It was then merely a curiosity, and a few plants 

 were brought back by Mr. Saunders, which resulted in the establish- 

 ment of an industry in which there is now nearly $200,000,000 in- 

 vested : it is one of the most scientific and highly organized horticul- 

 tural industries. The income from that investment is simply pro- 

 digious. 



