4 BULLETIN 1111, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
varieties needed only to be bred and distributed to the farmers, but 
experience showed that further attention must be given if varieties 
are to be preserved and utilized. Certainly no adequate utilization 
is to be expected under a system of production that mixes the varie- 
ties together, so that the work of selection is immediately undone 
as soon as commercial production begins. 
The damage to the industry that might be charged every year 
to the lack of good seed and the resulting failure to utilize fully the 
resources of production that are applied to cotton would amount 
to hundreds of millions of dollars. Replacement of the present 
inferior mixed stocks by superior uniform varieties would give a 
direct gain of at least 10 per cent in quality and as much more in 
yield. Another 10 per cent increment might be expected from cul- 
tural improvements that are more feasible in one-variety communi- 
ties, while advantages from community handling and marketing of a 
standardized product would not be less important than- the other 
items, and the sale of pure seed is a further resource of one-variety 
communities. In returns or profits for the farmer, our present 
unorganized production of cotton may have only a 50 per cent 
efficiency as compared with what might be found possible if improved 
varieties and methods were regularly used in organized one-variety 
communities. The general waste of labor and resources of produc- 
tion in the eastern cotton belt contrasts painfully with the one-variety 
communities of the Salt River Valley of Arizona, where the Pima 
variety of Egyptian cotton is grown exclusively and the advantages 
of community organizations are beginning to be realized. 
Xobody who considers the possibility of community organization 
of the cotton industry will doubt that the same land and labor can 
be made to produce more and better cotton under community con- 
ditions. From the standpoint of utilization of improved varieties 
and methods it becomes apparent that a faulty organization of the 
industry, or lack of organization, now interferes with the general 
application of practical results of scientific investigation. Since 
there is no question that production should be based on superior 
varieties, an expedient that would make this possible is worthy of 
the consideration of those who are interested in or responsible for the 
progress of the cotton industry. The one-variety plan seems funda- 
mental because it is the only way that has been suggested for main- 
taining supplies of good seed, that are an absolute requirement for 
any general or well-established improvement of production. That 
it is difficult for communities to agree, and possible for a persistently 
careless or obstinate farmer to interfere with the progress of his 
neighbors and contaminate their seed stocks by refusing to plant a 
superior variety, is the most serious objection advanced thus far, 
but the existence of such obstacles only shows the need of more in- 
