34 
COMMUNITY UTILIZATION OF VARIETIES. 
Considering that adequate supplies of pure seed are the first 
requisite for extending the use of any superior variety of cotton, it 
follows that any good variety must have a central localized produc- 
tion at first, whatever the later developments. This is especially 
necessary with varieties developed by the United States Department 
of Agriculture, which have a serious handicap at first in the seed 
being distributed free instead of going out as high-priced advertising 
novelties, sold very often at several dollars a bushel. Distributing 
the seed widely does not increase the supply, since little reliance can 
be placed upon seed that is raised by individual farmers in mixed 
communities unless special precautions of isolation and separate 
ginning are taken. The fate of most varieties is that they are not 
localized sufficiently to keep the seed pure, so that the scale of com- 
mercial production is scarcely reached before the variety begins to 
deteriorate. Hence, varieties of cotton are "short lived" unless a 
basic seed stock is preserved by continued isolation and selection. A 
variety no longer exists in a practical sense when uniformity is lost 
and the work of selection undone. The only varieties that have been 
useful are those that have been maintained for periods of years, in 
most cases by the original breeders, who established centers of pro- 
duction and seed supply in their surrounding communities through 
the practical inducement of buying or helping to find markets for the 
seed that their neighbors produced. 
Localization of varieties in this necessary and constructive way 
is more common in Texas than in any of the States to the east, 
possibly because the boll-weevil invasion reached Texas first and there 
has been more time for readjustment. Another reason is that the 
eastern Upland varieties are not well adapted to the Texas condi- 
tions, so that the farmers have learned to depend on their local 
varieties instead of bringing seed from Georgia or the Carolinas, as 
the custom formerly was. Holding to the big-boll type of cotton has 
rendered the Texas crop generally more uniform, and a distinct 
market advantage is now recognized as a result. Although only a 
few communities have as yet undertaken a strict adherence to a sin- 
gle variety, the fiber quality and staple length of the Texas big-boll 
varieties — Triumph, Lone Star, and Rowden — are not so different as 
many of the varieties that are grown in other parts of the country, 
so that the Texas crop as a whole is of more uniform quality. But 
now it is being recognized that this advantage can be increased by 
more definite local specialization, and many Texas communities and 
districts are approaching the one-variety status. 
In view of the requirement of seed supplies to make utilization pos- 
sible, it is obvious that any variety which attains prominence and 
