COMPARISON OF PIMA COTTON WITH UPLAND VARIE¬ 
TIES IN ARIZONA 1 
By C. J. King, Assistant Agronomist , H. F. Loomis, Assistant , and D. L. 
Varmette, Field Aid , Office of Acclimatization and Adaptation of Crop Plants 
and Cotton Breeding Investigations , Bureau of Plant Industry , United States 
Department of Agriculture 
INTRODUCTION 
From the time the cotton industry in Arizona reached commercial importance, 
about 1915, until the season of 1922, the Salt River Valley of Arizona was main¬ 
tained as a one-variety cotton community and received wide recognition as a 
source of production for American Egyptian cotton of high quality. Marketing 
conditions have not been favorable for Egyptian cotton since the war period, 
and each year larger quantities of Upland cotton have been grown. Only a few 
farmers planted Upland cotton in 1921, but in 1922 there were about 4,300 acres, 
and in 1923 about 58,000 acres. On the other hand, the planting of Pima cotton 
has been reduced from 73,000 acres in 1922 to about 40,000 acres in 1923. The 
future planting policy in the Salt River Valley is likely to be determined largely 
with reference to market conditions and prices. 
Plantings have been made in each season since 1920 at the United States 
Field Station at Sacaton, Ariz., to compare the habits of growth and productive¬ 
ness of the varieties considered best adapted for this region. The experiments 
consisted of quarter-acre blocks of seven rows of each variety, and the rows 
picked and recorded separately. The yield relations of the varieties differed 
with the seasons, but the plantings were not repeated in the way that is neces¬ 
sary to determine whether such differences are significant. Hence the results 
are not reported in an attempt to prove the superiority of any variety. 
VARIETIES STUDIED AND METHODS EMPLOYED 
In 1920 two Upland varieties, Lone Star and Durango, were compared with 
the Pima Egyptian variety. In 1921 the Acala variety was added to the series, 
and in 1923 the Hartsville and Mebane. The Acala is an Upland variety of 
Mexican origin which in recent years has been grown extensively in the San 
Joaquin and Coachella Valleys of California, in Oklahoma and northern Texas, 
and is rapidly increasing in popularity in Arizona and in the southwestern cotton 
growing States. The Hartsville is a long staple Upland variety from South 
Carolina originated by the United States Department of Agriculture and first 
distributed in 1907. The Mebane is a well known Texas big-boll variety with 
1^-inch staple. All of these varieties were planted to some extent in the Salt 
River Valley during 1922 and 1923, and are the only varieties that have received 
attention from the growers except a so-called “Delta” cotton which is indistin¬ 
guishable from Hartsville. 
The soil at Sacaton is an alluvial deposit of fine sand and silt, technically 
known as Pima sand, which has a high degree of fertility and a large water¬ 
holding capacity, making it very well adapted to cotton growing. The field 
used for the experiments is one of the most uniform on the station and offers 
special advantages for experimental studies of cotton. 
1 Received for publication Mar. 28, 1924—issued Nov., 1924. 
Journal of Agricultural Research, 
Washington, D. C. 
( 937 ) 
Vol. XXVIII, No. ft 
May 31,1924 
Key No. G-404 
