SEED SELECTION OF EGYPTIAN COTTON. 6 
usually strongly prepotent; that is to say, they produce very uniform 
progeny. 
The origin of new varieties by mutation must not be confused 
with the improvement of an existing variety by selection. The so- 
called Assil 'cotton, which is attracting much attention in Egypt, is 
apparently an example of the latter process, having been developed 
by simply selecting the plants of Mit Afifi having the most abundant 
lint. In all essential characters Assil is still Mit Afifi, although 
constituting a superior strain of that variety. On the other hand, 
Jannovitch, Nubari, and Sakellaridis are totally distinct varieties, 
easily distinguishable by the characters of the plants and the fiber. 
Until quite lately very little was done in Egypt to keep the different 
varieties from intercrossing. In addition to the presence of a half 
dozen commercial varieties, the country is full of an inferior type 
known as weed cotton, or " Hindi," producing scanty, weak, short 
fiber, which is white, like American Upland, rather than buff or 
cream colored, as in most Egyptian varieties. The Hindi plants, 
unless removed from the fields before they begin to blossom, readily 
cross with the Egyptian, and the result is a multitude of worthless 
and often nearly sterile hybrids. 
The recently established Egyptian department of agriculture is 
striving to induce the growers to practice seed selection on their 
farms, but thus far the only remedy for the bad effects of all this 
mixing has been to sort the cotton by hand, picking out the masses 
of white Hindi fiber. This practice is rendered economically possible 
only by the cheapness of labor in Egypt. 
PLANT-BREEDING WORK IN ARIZONA. 
Twelve years ago the United States Department of Agriculture 
imported seed of the principal Egyptian varieties of cotton and began 
testing them in Arizona. The Mit Afifi having given better results 
than any other variety then at hand, the work was continued with 
this type alone. By dint of selection for five or six years some prog- 
ress was made in increasing the yield and earliness of the plants and 
the abundance, length, and strength of the fiber. Yet until 1908 the 
results were not very encouraging. In that year the appearance 
of a superior type, very distinct from Mit Afifi in all of its charac- 
ters, offered a promising basis for the establishment of Egyptian 
cotton in Arizona. 
This new type, distinguished from Mit Afifi by its relatively large 
bolls and long, cream-colored fiber, is the Yuma variety, which is 
now being grown in the Salt River Valley. It resembles the Nubari 
variety, which appeared in Egypt at about the same time, in the 
shape of the leaves, bracts, and bolls, but is superior in the staple and 
