10 BULLETIN 533, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
Joaquin Valley, as it has been in recent years in the Imperial Valley 
and the Salt River Valley of Arizona. The supply of farm labor 
now available in the San Joaquin Valley certainly is very much 
greater than it was half a century ago, when irrigation agriculture 
was new. How much of the available labor can be applied with 
advantage to the care and harvesting of a cotton crop is a question 
that must be decided independently in each community. 
Experience gained in Arizona and elsewhere in the United States 
in recent years does not indicate that the cotton industry requires or 
is limited to the use of cheap and irresponsible labor. Dependence 
on such labor tends rather to injure and restrict the development of 
cotton culture by keeping it on a low plane, limited to inferior 
varieties and mixed seed, so that poor and uneven lint is produced, 
the value of which is still further depreciated by careless harvesting 
and handling. 
"When the several unnecessary wastes and losses are taken into 
account and the possibilities of avoiding these are recognized, one is 
brought inevitably to see that the very best quality of agricultural 
skill and of careful, intelligent labor can be utilized in the production 
of cotton and that the industry is much more likely to prosper if it 
can leave behind the traditions of cheap labor. Hence, it is not neces- 
sary to suppose that the establishment of cotton culture in California 
would increase the present dependence on transient labor. It seems 
quite as likely to add to the permanent population by making it easier 
for new settlers to establish themselves. 
Farm work with cotton is not of a nature to be considered as 
heavier or more laborious than with crops that are already grown in 
California. Methods of plowing, preparation, and seeding are not 
unlike those for corn or other tillage crops. Thinning and cultivat- 
ing make less demands than for sugar beets. The gathering of the 
crop, though representing by far the largest item of labor cost in 
the production, is neither a heavy nor an unpleasant kind of work 
in comparison with the harvesting of many other crops. In com- 
munities of new settlers or where women and children share in the 
outdoor work of the farm, the planting by each family of small acre- 
ages that could be handled without extra labor would be worthy of 
consideration. The lint as it hangs exposed in the open bolls is 
perfectly clean and must be kept in that condition if it is to have the 
highest market value. 
Careless picking diminishes the value of the fiber to the manufac- 
turer because additional labor and machinery are required to clean 
the carelessly picked cotton and because some of the fiber is turned 
into waste as a result of the cleaning operations. An estimate of 
what it costs the manufacturers every year to overcome by machinery 
and mill labor the results of carelessness and ignorance in the produc- 
