H. G. Hastings & Co., Seedsmen, Atlanta, Georgia. 
9 
lOO-BOLL PLANTS 
FOR STOCK SEED 
Our Cotton Breeder, Mr. D. S. Starr, made a mighty important 
announcement to us a few weeks ago. He said : “Our cotton seed 
breeding has now reached a point where we will throw out every 
cotton plant for stock seed that has produced less than 100 bolls 
per plant under general field culture.” Please stop and think a 
minute just how much that means. Compare it with the best plants 
you had in your field, and see the difference. For all of our special 
work each plant has to be a producer of 100 bolls or more, and we 
have had them up to 200 bolls in general field work. 
How does this kind of seed breeding compare with the “thief” 
plant shown on the opposite page? How does it compare with your 
own fields last summer or even the summer before when everybody 
was supposed to have the biggest kind of a bumper crop? 
Before we begun this special seed or plant breeding work we 
knew there was something wrong about cotton but our general idea 
was that the trouble was mostly from poor cultivation and fertiliz- 
ing. While these have their effect it wasn’t until we got right down 
to a study of separate plants in the field that we found out the real 
trouble, the trouble that made low yields in even the best of vari- 
eties. It was the number of “thief” plants that infest every field. 
There are “thief’ plants in all kinds of crops, “thief” cotton plants, 
“thief’ corn plants, “thief” oat plants, etc., but the easiest for you 
to detect is the “thief” cotton plant. 
HOW MANY “THIEF PLANTS” DO YOU GROW? 
Possibly you may think that this is none of our business. In one 
way it is none of our business, but we honestly want to see every 
farmer in the Cotton Belt prosper in the fullest sense and full pros- 
perity can’t come so long as a large part of your crop is composed 
of “thief” plants. 
You probably have certain seed set aside for this year’s planting. 
How many seeds from “thief” plants (10 bolls or less per plant) 
are there in that lot? Do you know? This is an absolutely fair 
question that you ought to ask yourself. 
On a “Big Boll” basis it takes 18 to 20 bolls per plant to r ake a 
bale per acre, from 25 to 30 bolls of the small boll varieties. How 
near does the seed you have been planting measure up to this re- 
quirement in cotton producing power? It’s no strain on a cotton 
plant to make 25 bolls per plant. In our breeding work we have 
got to the point that any plant with less than 100 bolls is thrown 
out. under field cultivation. 
We don’t know of any farmer that would not be more than 
pleased to make 1^2 to 2 bales per acre. You can do it with good 
cultivation, medium fertilizing and planting seed with prolific, 
heavy bearing qualities being bred into it. The seed must be right 
to make paying crops. Look at those pictures on the opposite page 
again. Both plants had an equal chance. It “was a question of 
“blood,” so to speak, that made the difference. 
When we talk about a man that belongs to some prominent family 
that has done something of note, has distinguished himself in some 
way, we often say, “it’s in the blood.” That’s exactly correct. It’s 
in the blood, and the same natural law that makes one man a useful 
citizen and the other a “no account,” worthless specimen of human- 
ity runs through your cotton and corn fields. You have profitable 
plants and you have “thief plants.” 
The State can’t very well kill off the useless or worse than useless 
men and women that are a drag on humanity, but you can get rid- 
of the “thief plants” in your fields. We have seed that is not full of 
“thief plants.” Our careful, painstaking seed breeding, selection 
and careful seed growing cleans them out. It’s our business to do 
this kind of work. You are frequently advised by agents of your 
State and the United States Department of Agriculturetoselectyour 
own seed. That’s mighty good advice, but why take the seyeral 
years necessary to bring up your seed when you can reach the qual- 
ity you want in one season buying from us? We haye been at this 
for years. “Thief plants” don’t* grow in our seed fields. 
A SCIENTIFIC COTTON EXPERT'S OPINION 
No man in the United States is better posted on cotton both from a scientific standpoint and that of an actual, practical cotton grower 
than is Prof. R. J. H. DeLoach, Professor of Cotton Industry in the State College of Agriculture of Georgia. Professor DeLoach is no 
stranger to tens of thousands of Georgia farmers who haye met him at Farmers’ Institutes all oyer Georgia during the last three years. 
Oyer one hundred thousand readers of the Southern Ruralist profited by his exceptionally interesting series of articles on cotton grow- 
ing published during the spring of 1910. Personally we would rather take his opinion on cotton growing and breeding than any man in 
this country. Our expert in charge of our cotton breeding work, Mr. D. S. Starr, studied several years under Prof. DeLoach at Athens, 
Prof. DeLoach has been very much interested in this cotton breeding work of ours and frequently visits our farms. He knows exactly 
what we afe doing along the line of improvement of cotton seed and plant breeding. Below we publish extracts from letters from Prof. 
DeLoach following visits to the Hastings’ Farm in 1910, 1911 and 1912. 
Letters From Prof. R. J. H. DeLoach, State College of Agriculture 
Jlessrs. H. G. Hastings & Co., Atlanta, Ga. Athens, Ga., October 31, 1910. 
Gentlemen; — My last visit to your seed trial farm on October 14th impressed on me the possibilities of the great good that must re- 
sult from the work you are doing. 
These seed trials and demonstration experiments in connection with the seed business is a new enterprise in the South, and it strikes 
me as being the only possible way to make a close study of what you offer for sale in the way of farm crops and garden seeds. I thor- 
oughly enjoyed going over the three thousand acres of land in Troup County now set aside to grow special seed from your stock. 
Most of the work I had the pleasure of looking over was the cotton breeding, showing the great necessity for careful selection and 
cultivation as well as fertilization to keep up good strains of cotton. It would not be exaggerating to say you would average two and 
a half to three bales per acre on some of your plots planted with your specially selected seed. This shows that in order to get the best 
producing plants in a field you must go to the field with a knowledge of the plant and make intelligent selections for special points of 
improvements. In order to offer cotton seed for sale, one should have first-hand knowledge of the varieties and their rank. I counted 
the forty-two separate varieties in your trial grounds as they gT';w side by side, and could not help but be impressed by the enthus- 
iastic way in which your expert in charge of the work (Mr. Starr) went about a study of these varieties. He showed me where he had 
planted one row each from seed from ten different plants selected from one of the best varieties and had gotten ten distinct types of^ 
cotton from the one variety. I looked carefully over this and could hardly believe it was possible to get such results. But this is just* 
why the average cotton growers cannot fix a type of cotton. They do not understand the importance of showing how much variation 
there is in a given variety and then getting the average and working to fix that. The “one plant selection,” or the making of a new 
type from one plant selected out of a given variety, has been done for many years, and in fact most of the so-called varieties origi- 
nated in this way. But that is not sufficient to fix your type. The progeny of the selected plant should be tested by the “plan^ to row” 
method till the desired type has been fixed, and rigid selection kept up. Here is where you have the great advantage of the farmer, 
viz.: in having a man to do this special work; an expert who does nothing else. Very respectfully, 
R. J. H. DeLOAGH, 
Professor of Cotton Industry, Georgia State College of Agriculture. 
Prof. DeLoach, following his custom, kept in touch with Mr. Starr’s work during 1911, and in reply to an inquiry from us last fall 
wrote us on Nov. 6th, 1911, as follows: 
“Replying to your favor of the 4th inst., I can only say that Mr. Starr’s work on your cotton breeding this year impressed me as be- 
ing fully up to the standard that you have set for this work. He is at present thoroughly in line with the work and becomes each year 
more efficient, and in this meets my expectations. The way he has planned his work to follow up the progeny of his plant-to-row tests 
of last year are exceedingly interesting and I think ought to give Some valuable results. I am also impressed with the way he is keep- 
ing his records of the work he is doing. This is half the battle in Successful breeding and should be stressed always.” 
On October 7th, 1912, Prof. DeLoach writes : “After returning on yesterday from your Seed Farm and Test Plots I feel a new inter- 
est in the future development of Georgia and the South. The work that your expert (Mr. Starr) is doing in the development of the new 
strains of cotton, proved as interesting to me as on my former visits and helped to convince me that the venture is proving everything 
you could wish for it. It is not only money well spent in the development of better cotton, but through your large farm is carrying 
greater success to the farmers at large.” 
