PRODUCTION OF AMERICAN EGYPTIAN COTTON. 5 
when the price of American long-staple cottons is relatively high. 
There is also a certain amount of substitution of the longest Egyp- 
tian, especially of the Sakellaridis variety, for the shorter lengths 
of Sea Island cotton, depending upon the relative prices of the two 
types. There remains, however, a certain proportion of the imported 
Egyptian cotton for which no other fiber appears to be a satisfactory 
_ substitute. : 
In view of this fact, the question has been frequently asked whether 
Egyptian cotton could not be produced in the United States in sufli- 
cient quantity to supply at least a part of the home demand. Condi- 
tions which have arisen in Egypt since the first attempts were made 
to answer this question have emphasized the importance of under- 
taking the production of Egyptian cotton in this country. It has 
been found that the maintenance of a uniform quality of any of the 
Egyptian varieties is rendered precarious by the fact that in Egypt 
_ distinct varieties are often grown in adjacent fields. There is also a 
general contamination of the whole Egyptian crop with an inferior 
and distinct type of cotton known as Hindi. 
These conditions make it almost impossible to maintain in Egypt 
a supply of pure seed of a variety which has reached the stage of 
commercial production, because all these types of cotton cross freely 
with each other and adequate precautions are seldom taken to keep 
the seed of the different kinds separate at the gin. Furthermore, the 
cotton crop of Egypt suffers severely from insect enemies, notably 
in recent years from the ravages of the pink bollworm. This pest 
threatens a serious reduction of the crop, or at least a wide fluctua- 
tion in total production from year to year. Thus, it appears unsafe 
for the numerous American users of this type of cotton to depend 
solely upon Egypt for their supply of raw material, and the desira- 
bility of developing an independent source of supply in the United 
States has recently been emphasized by the uncertainty attending 
transportation under war conditions as well as by the need of extra- 
staple cotton for aeroplane and balloon fabrics and for other mili- 
tary purposes. 
PRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN COTTON IN AMERICA. 
Although experiments with the production of Egyptian. cotton in 
the southwestern United States were begun in 1902, it was not until 
1912 that it was deemed advisable to recommend the commercial 
production of the crop. In the spring of that year seed was dis- 
tributed by the Department of Agriculture to a number of farmers 
in the Salt River Valley in Arizona and the Imperial Valley in Cali- 
fornia. As a result of this distribution about 480 acres of cotton 
were brought through to harvest, and the crop of 1912 amounted to 
375 bales of 500 pounds each. 
