R.B. BUCHANAN SEED CO. MEMPHIS. TENNESSEE. 
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Weighing Cotton for Pickers on a Southern Cotton Plantation 
THE MOST PROFITABLE COTTON CROP 
I have received thousands of letters during my forty years’ 
experience as a seedsman, asking my advice as to what is the 
best variety of cotton to plant, and I have given this matter 
much study and thought, and my conclusions are that the farmer 
selecting a variety to plant should consider first its productive 
power as regards pounds of lint per acre; second, length of 
staple; third, quality of lint; and fourth, percentage of lint. The 
results obtained show that the yield of lint per acre is much 
more important than percentage of lint or gin turn-out. 
I have always advised farmers to grow the variety or vari¬ 
eties of cotton that bring the biggest per-acre returns in dollars 
and cents. Yield of lint, percentage of lint or gin turn-out and 
length of staple are all important, and should be considered 
when selecting a variety of seed to plant. However, let us always 
select the variety that yields the most profit per acre, regard¬ 
less of the length of staple, yield of lint per acre, or quality 
of lint. 
I have sold HALF AND HALF cotton seed since it was first 
introduced more than twenty years ago, have thousands of tes¬ 
timonial letters on file (see page 5D testifying to its value. I 
have always said that this seed grown in the northern edge of 
the Cotton Belt will mature 10 to 20 days earlier than cotton 
grown further south and on medium or upland will yield more 
dollars and cents to an acre than any cotton grown. 
CLEANING COTTON SEED 
A germination test of cotton seed is not a real test for planting 
seed. Every stalk of cotton bears some poor seed. No matter 
how prolific, some of the seed are weakling, and *may possibly 
germinate, but will never produce fruit-bearing plants. I have 
before me a photographic cut showing two stalks of cotton 
grown four feet apart; one has 105 full sized bolls, and the other 
has four dwarfed bolls, the difference is due solely to seed 
which produced this cotton. While seed were of same variety 
and may have been grown on same stalk, one was fully matured, 
plump and heavy, while the other was light and of low vitality. 
Any field of cotton will demonstrate, the above is not THEORY— 
BUT FACT. Cleaning seed is not to supersede the plant breeder, 
but to perform an operation for which he has no facilities. Buy 
seed which have been properly cleaned and graded. If planting 
your home grown seed, arrange a home made cleaner and sepa¬ 
rator to take out the locks, bolls and other foreign matter which 
stops up your planter and causes long skips in your cotton rows 
—these skips cost the cotton planters of the South thousands of 
dollars each year. We reclean our cotton seed before shipping 
to take out the bolls, locks, sand, trash, light seed and wild weed 
seed. This operation costs us $3.00 a ton for cleaning and loses 
about 10% of the seed. 
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R. B. BUCHANAN. 
PLANT LESS ACRES WITH PURE BRED SEED 
Cotton Baled 
Cotton Gin 
Tenant Family 
(Page 48) 
