EXTENSION" OF COTTON PRODUCTION IN CALIFORNIA. 15 
Experimental plantings in the region of Bakersfield indicate that 
the Egyptian type of cotton can be. grown in the southern part of the 
San Joaquin Valley. No assurance can be given that Egyptian cot- 
ton will mature a crop outside of the Bakersfield-Fresno region. If 
plantings are to be made in the northern part of the San Joaquin 
Valle}^ or in the Sacramento Valley, the Durango cotton or other 
long-staple Upland varieties are more likely to succeed, since they 
do not require as long a season as the Egyptian. 
While cotton makes larger demands for hand labor than many 
other crops its requirements for attention at particular times usually 
are not so acute, which renders it well adapted for fitting in with 
other crops to form practical systems of diversified agriculture. 
Labor is needed chiefly at the picking season, which comes in the fall 
after the grapes and most of the other fruit crops have been 
harvested. 
Although favorable natural conditions may be found in many 
places, it is not advisable to attempt to grow cotton on a commercial 
scale except in communities that can be organized for this purpose, so 
as to have an assured prospect of production on such a scale as to 
warrant the establishment, preferably under community auspices, of 
the ginning establishments and oil mills that are a part of the neces- 
sary equipment of a cotton-producing community. 
Farmers in California are advised against undertaking the plant- 
ing of cotton on a merely individual basis, not only because of the 
difficulties of handling and marketing a new crop to advantage, but 
also in order to avoid as far as possible the danger of attempts being 
made to bring in cotton seed either from the cotton belt or from 
Egypt. Such importations of cotton seed are now forbidden by Fed- 
eral and State regulations, the object being to prevent the introduc- 
tion of the boll weevil from the cotton belt and the pink bollworm 
from Egypt. 
Another reason for advising that efforts to establish cotton culture 
be centralized in communities is that much more effective cooperation 
can be extended by the different branches of the Department of Agri- 
culture that have been working in recent years in cooperation with 
new communities. The nature of the cotton industry is such that 
many things can be done by communities which are impracticable for 
the farmer who attempts to grow and market his crop individually. 
Efforts to establish the cotton industry in new districts have, of 
necessity, to pass through an experimental period in order to deter- 
mine the best variety to be grown, the special cultural methods re- 
quired by the local conditions, the form of organization adapted to 
the community, and the most desirable system of handling and mar- 
keting, as well as to solve other problems that are encountered in 
developing new communities. 
