4 BULLETIN 533, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
there is as little occasion for farmers to undertake to bring in Upland 
seed from the cotton belt as to get Egyptian seed from Egypt. To 
make importations of Egyptian or other foreign seed is contrary to 
regulations under the Federal plant-quarantine law and the State 
quarantine law of California and is extremely dangerous on account 
of the possibility of introducing the boll weevil or other parasites. 
The ravages of the pink bollworm in Egypt, India, and other regions 
show that it is a very serious pest, like the boll weevil. It is of 
the utmost importance to keep these insects out if cotton growing is 
to develop in California. While regular importations of seed are 
prevented, the public needs to be warned of the danger from seed 
that may be brought in casually by travelers or immigrants from 
foreign countries or by settlers from Texas or other weevil-infested 
States. 
COTTON FORMERLY GROWN IN CALIFORNIA. 
In the San Joaquin Valley, cotton growing can hardly be consid- 
ered as a new industry but rather as a return to a beginning that was 
made in the early years of the agricultural history of the State, in the 
middle of the last century, and maintained through the period of the 
Civil War and beyond. The Ninth Census, that for 1870, notes the 
production of 31 bales of cotton in San Diego County, but it is 
known that larger acreages of cotton were being planted in the San 
Joaquin Valley during this period. 
In the report of the Tenth Census, that for 1880, published in 
1884, California was included with the other cotton-growing States 
on- a basis of production of 295 bales, grown on 375 acres in Merced 
County, the lack of more complete statistics being explained by a 
note saying that " the enumeration schedules sent to this State did 
not include cotton." 
In the general discussion of the conditions and prospects of cotton 
culture in California, also published in the Tenth Census report, 
plantings estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 acres are said to have been made 
in Merced County in 1873, and in that year a firm of Merced County 
growers made an export shipment of 22,886 pounds of cotton to 
Liverpool. This seems to have marked the climax of the early ef- 
forts, but areas of 350 to 500 acres continued to be planted in the 
next decade, or possibly later, though no cotton was returned from 
California in the .Eleventh Census, that for 1890. 
Hilgard shows that cotton had begun to attract attention in Cali- 
fornia as far back as 1856, when a premium of $75 was offered by 
the State Agricultural Society for the best acre of cotton. In 1862 
the State Legislature offered an aggregate of $6,500 in premiums for 
cotton in lots of 100 bales, the best lot to be rewarded with $3,000, but 
the prizes remained unclaimed until 1865, when the $3,000 was paid 
to a farmer in Los Angeles County who raised 108 acres, the yield 
