2 BULLETIN 121, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
of the spinners with so-called long-staple Carolina uplands had been 
unsatisfactory. 
Subsequent investigation seems to indicate that this was because 
most of the so-called staple cottons produced in this territory had 
been grown from seed brought over from the Mississippi Delta, 
which was not acclimated. Xo adequate care had been taken to 
keep such importations pure by preventing cross-polienization in the 
held or mixing of seed at the gin. Furthermore, few ginners in the 
Carolinas, outside the Sea Island belt, were familiar with staple 
cotton, and much of that which they handled was seriously injured 
in the ginning process. 
There were, however, in the Carolinas a few careful breeders who 
had taken up systematic selection and breeding work with the best 
strains obtainable of the Columbia variety, which had been devel- 
oped and introduced by the Department of Agriculture some years 
before. At the same time this department was developing the 
Durango cotton in the TV'est. This variety is especially adapted to 
the irrigated regions of the extreme Southwest and has given excel- 
lent results on river bottoms in Texas and in other favorable loca- 
tions having sufficient moisture. It has recently been grown with 
marked success as far north as Norfolk, Va. 
With the sudden decrease in the staple production of the Delta, 
Carolina breeders found sale for their best qualities at very satis- 
factory prices, which stimulated greatly the planting of staple 
varieties in areas previously given over almost entirely to short 
cotton. A study of the quality of the staples produced for some 
years past in certain parts of the Carolinas and of the prices re- 
ceived seems to indicate that the few spinners who understood the 
true character and value of these cottons added largely to their 
profits by quietly absorbing the entire output at prices very much 
below those prevailing for corresponding qualities grown in the 
Delta. A very large number of spinners, however, still hold to the 
opinion that Upland staple cottons grown in the Carolinas and 
Georgia are wholly inferior to those grown in the Delta. They be- 
lieve the Eastern staples to be more " wasty," that is to say, that they 
contain a larger proportion of short fibers which will be taken out 
as waste in the manufacture of combed yarns. The department's 
breeder- have satisfied themselves, by examination in the field, that 
the best of the new Upland varieties are fully equal in uniformity 
of staple to the average " Deltas r ' or " Peelers" of the same length. 
The results of the experiments here recorded show the character 
of the best Upland staples grown in the East to be sufficiently high 
to warrant spinners in being less conservative in buying them. 
It must be remembered that these are the first tests in a new field 
of investigation. Too sweeping and far-reaching conclusions should 
