28 BULLETIN 1111, IT. £. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
to full size, and many have abortive, shriveled embryos, while the 
fiber is both shorter and weaker than that of the normally developed 
bolls. Parts of the same field or the earlier or later bolls on the 
same plants may grow to full size and produce good fiber, but the 
crop as a whole is inferior. The mixture of weak " perished " fiber 
from the shriveled, poorly developed bolls impairs the textile quality 
as definitely as a mixture of short cotton unless the damage is avoided 
by picking the injured cotton separately. Cotton that develops 
under uniformly favorable conditions not only yields more but the 
fiber is of much higher textile value, which undoubtedly would be 
recognized in the market if a more practical system of buying were 
developed. 
Field-inspection buying could be used to advantage even in mixed- 
variety communities, to avoid the worst and most uneven stocks or 
fields injured by unfavorable conditions, but the crop could be much 
more effectively standardized in one-variety communities, on account 
of the greater familiarity with the chosen variety and easier and 
more definite recognition of its characters and behavior. The general 
tendency of such a system would be progressive in relation to varie- 
ties and to careful growing of the crop. Not only the farmer who 
planted low-quality or mixed seed could be detected and avoided by 
buyers, but the differences that result from cultural conditions could 
be recognized in classing the cotton. Organized communities would 
be able to get the full value of the more uniform fiber that they are 
able to produce, in addition to the other advantages of using superior 
varieties. 
RELATION OF COMMUNITY PRODUCTION TO DIVERSIFIED 
FARMING. 
Community organization to maintain production of the same kind 
of cotton from year to year gives a better basis of developing a 
well-balanced system of agriculture. Regularity of production and 
uniformity of product are fundamental factors in the utilization, 
market demand, and commercial value of an industrial raw material. 
Plunging from one crop or from one variety of cotton to another, 
so that one year there is a surplus and the next year a " cotton 
famine," is not properly to be described as diversification, but rather 
as " wild-cat " agriculture. No sort of cotton can attain its true 
industrial value withuut regularity of supply and the development 
of confidence by the industrial world that the same raw material 
is to be available from year to year in approximately the same 
quantities. In other words, stabilizing production, which is pos- 
sible through community organization and in no other way yet 
suggested, would be an advantage to the industry, as clearly in the 
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