8 
JI. G. Hasi!)ic;s & Co., Gccdomcn, .'l!!aji!o, Ccc-' i'. 
What Two Photographs Show 
The Plants that Steal the Cotton Grower’s Money 
In every cmp of cotton in the South there are always some plants making cotton at the rate of a bale per acre or more. If some plants in every 
crop do it, why not all plants in the crop? Why does one plant have 20 or 30 or even 60 bolls on it and another under exactly the same coiditions 
have only 2 or 4 or 6? This is a most serious question for you and for us. If there are always some plants in every crop making at the bale per acre 
rate, why i it that the averase production is only about one-third of a bale per acre? Every cotton grower in the South Is interested in the answer. 
It’ a’matter for both you and ourselves to consider fully, to get a clear and truthful answer to. 
We find much of interest and value in our test and cotton-breeding work on the Hastings’ Farms, and we can answer the question. 
THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION ABOVE. FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF 2 PLANTS OF THE SAME VARIETY IN OUR TEST 
GROUNDS. COST JUST AS MUCH TO GROW ONE PLANT AS IT DID THE OTHER 
We had these photographs taken on purpose to reproduce in our cata¬ 
logue. It illustrates fully the importance of “seed-breeding,” not only the 
Importance, but the necessity for it. We have no message for the cotton 
grower who is content to make H or bale of cotton per acre. Our mes¬ 
sage is for the man who wants to stay in the bale or more per acre cla's. 
We are regularly buying and testing all of the varieties of cotton we 
hear of, growing them to see how goi d the variety is and whether the 
seed has been worked to a point where it is valuable. We do not mention 
the name of the variety shown above but would say that we paid a good 
price for this seed, tliatlt was extensively advertised and soldby a cotton 
grower in 1911 as the best cotton that could be planted and is again being 
advertised this year. This cotton, while considerably better than the 
average, shows a lack of regularity, of ‘ breeding-up.” There were some 
goodplantsln this lot but most of them were 10bulls or less per plant. 
The real point to the cotton grower is this: It took exactly as much in 
costln the way of use of land, plowing, cultivating and fertilizer to grow 
a plant bearing 2 bolls as it did the one growing nearly 60. There is hard ly 
a cotton field in the South that won't show some such variation in the 
yields of the different plants in the field. We have all been growing too 
many ofthese 2, 3,4 or 6 boll plants of cotton and not enough 20,30 or 40 
boll plants. Years ago we knew there was something wrong about cotton 
growing but our idea was that the trouble was mostly the poor cultiva¬ 
tion and light fertilizing. We then looked on cotton as a whole field of 
cotton and it wasn't until we got rightdown tomaklnga close study of 
cotton as separate individual plants that we found that there was about 
as much difference between different plants of the same variety as there 
is between a prosperous, well to-do farmer and a boarder at the County 
Pauper Farm. If you doubt us on this point study the plant sin your own 
crop next summer and fall. We believe in the be;t of cultivation and 
fertilizing butlfthere are not prolific qualities actually in the seedyou 
plant you can’tmake bollson the plant. Planton the right had exactly 
the same chance as the one on the left. You seethe difference. It'sthose 
barren or nearly barren plants that make most of the cotton growln g un- 
profltab e; that has done more than anything else to put whole South 
on an average basis of less than 200 pounds of lint pei li^. That’s just 
where our “cotton-breeding” comes in. 
