2 BULLETIN 1467, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
experience here related, the problems of community development are 
in need of careful study from many different angles. 
Since the production of pure seed bears important relations to 
the community production of one variety, the procedure of estab- 
lishing and maintaining a seed supply also is described. 
LOCAL CONDITIONS 
The Coachella Valley is situated in Riverside County in the south- 
ern part of California. It slopes toward the southeast between the 
San Jacinto and San Bernardino mountain ranges and extends from 
the San Gorgonio Pass to the Salton Sea. Desert conditions obtain 
in the valley and much of the area is below sea level, the summer 
months being very hot. The water for irrigation is not supplied 
from storage dams by gravity, as is the case in most of the larger 
irrigated districts of the Southwest, but is pumped from wells, each 
farm usually being equipped with its own well and pumping plant. 
Flowing wells formerly existed in the valley, but their number has 
diminished with the increase in the cultivated area, until now they 
exist only in the lower portion of the valley. 
One of the first crops tried in the early days was muskmelons. 
They were grown with water from the flowing wells and were har- 
vested during May and June. The melon aphis became a serious 
pest, however, and with the development of the Imperial Valley and 
the large melon plantings made there, the industry became un- 
profitable in the Coachella Valley. The rancher then turned his 
attention to other crops, including cotton. The other principal 
crops now being grown in the Coachella Valley are dates, grape- 
fruit, grapes, onions, and early vegetables. 
FIRST COTTON PLANTINGS 
The commercial history of cotton production in the valley dates 
from 1910, when a 2-stand gin was erected at Arabia, though small 
clooryard and test plantings had been made prior to that time. One 
of these small plantings was made at Coachella in 1908 by the United 
States Department of Agriculture, which has experimented with the 
production of cotton in the irrigated valleys of the Southwest since 
1902. In 1909, O. F. Cook published a statement made by T. H. 
Kearney, of the department, regarding this planting, which was of 
an Egyptian variety. 1 
In 1909, A. W. McGill grew about 2 acres of Rowden cotton with 
seed procured in Texas and about one-quarter of an acre of Egyptian 
cotton with seed obtained from the United States Experiment Sta- 
tion at Yuma, Ariz. According to McGill the 2 acres of Rowden 
produced about 2 bales, but the Egyptian did not do very well. As 
there was no gin in the valley, McGill constructed a hand-roller gin, 
using a roller from a washing machine and a wooden roller. He 
ginned enough cotton to obtain seed for his next year's planting and 
stored the rest of his seed cotton. 
The first commercial cotton plantings were being made in neigh- 
boring valleys at about the same time, the first in the Imperial 
1 Cook; O. F. Suppressed and intensified characters in cotton hybrids. U. S. Dept. 
Agr., Bur. Plant Indus. Bui. 147. 27 pp. 1909. 
