Coker. Among the personnel at Harts- 
ville are six farm superintendents, eight 
office workers, and almost 200 laborers 
(not including seasonal farm laborers). 
Approximately 30 share croppers play 
a part in the company’s seed production 
schedules, along with about 125 contract 
seed growers in the Carolinas, Arkansas 
and Mississippi. 
The families living on Coker farms 
represent a total of some 500 people for 
whom the company provides comfortable 
homes, firewood, and gardens free of 
charge. Several of the tenants have lived 
on the farms for 25 to 30 years. Em- 
ployees or tenants who have been with 
the company for a number of years are 
cared for by the company when they be- 
come incapacitated. The company en- 
courages employees and tenants to take 
periodic medical examinations and pro- 
vides medical and hospital care to those 
who cannot afford it themselves. 
e Today’s Coker Cottons 
At one time Coker’s Pedigreed Seed 
Company produced Coker 100, Coker 200, 
4-in-1, Farm Relief, and Wilds, and in 
some instances two strains of each. But 
it was found desirable, because of chang- 
ing conditions, to reduce the lines to 
three basic varieties. These are Coker 
100 Wilt, a medium length staple of 
1-1/16 inch to 1-1/8 inch; Coker 100 
Staple, 2 longer cotton of 1-1/8 inch to 
1-5/32 inch; and Wilds, a long-staple 
cotton of 1-1/4 inch to 1-3/8 inch. Ap- 
proximately 95 percent of the acreage in 
the Carolinas is planted to Coker 100 
Wilt and it is also very popular in 
Georgia and Alabama and sections of 
Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas. Coker 
100 Staple was bred for the Mississippi 
Delta and other areas that can success- 
fully grow a longer staple cotton, and 
Wilds for areas that specialize in cotton 
of that length. 
e Tobacco and Small Grains 
The Coker organization is famous in 
the Southeastern states for its outstand- 
ing work with tobacco and small grains. 
Approximately 40 percent of the flue 
cured tobacco acreage is planted in Coker 
seed and approximately a million acres 
in small grain varieties developed at 
Hartsville. 
As a plant breeder of “international 
repute,” to use David R. Coker’s own 
words, George J. Wilds’ accomplishments 
in this field are as notable with oats and 
other small grains as with cotton. He has 
developed smut, rust, and cold resistant 
oats which make high yields, have high 
feeding value, and thus enjoy great 
popularity in the Carolinas and other 
Southeastern states. 
Objectives of the Breeding 
Program 
THE OBJECTIVE of the small grain 
program, which is in charge of S. J. 
Hadden, is the production of high-yield- 
ing, stiff-strawed, winter-hardy varieties 
highly resistant to diseases. In the 1949- 
50 breeding program, the Company’s 
nursery system involved the sowing of 
approximately 70,000 individual yield 
test and progeny rows on 295 acres of 
land. There were grown, in yield com- 
parisons, and special disease-test plots, 
26,386 breeding lines of oats, 8,500 of 
wheat, and 213 of barley. Recently de- 
veloped techniques are employed for test- 
ing all selected lines with pure cultures 
of disease organisms. A spacious green- 
house and well-equipped laboratory fa- 
cilitate such detailed tests. Special dis- 
ease-test nurseries grown in the lower 
South provide conditions favorable to 
selection for resistance. In oat breeding, 
a speed-up program has been instituted 
by growing an extra generation during 
the summer at Aberdeen, Idaho. 
In 1950, the company introduced a 
new Victorgrain oat (Victorgrain 48-93) 
much improved over the original variety 
in yield and Helminthosporium tolerance, 
and two new varieties of wheat that com- 
bine high resistance to rust and good 
tolerance to mildew. 
Beginning in 1928, under the direction 
of J. Verne Williamson, Coker pioneered 
in the systematic breeding of uniformly 
better flue-cured varieties of tobacco. In 
1942 C. Hoyt Rogers, pathologist and 
Ph.D. of Rutgers University, was added 
to the staff, and in an intensive research 
program for disease resistance is being 
earried on. Under his direction an am- 
bitious program of tobacco breeding 
work at Hartsville has been inaugurated, 
a part of which is a cooperative project 
with one of the major tobacco companies 
wherein promising lines are analyzed in 
the tobacco firm’s laboratories and car- 
ried through the complete aging and 
manufacturing processes to evaluate the 
tobaccos for cigarette manufacture. Dr. 
Rogers has a similar program for dis- 
ease resistance in cotton breeding, in- 
volving inter-specific crossing for added 
strength and spinning value. This re- 
search holds out great promise for the 
future. 
The corn breeding program at Coker’s, 
directed by R. E. Gettys, has been in 
progress for 11 years. A winter nursery 
is grown near Miami, Florida, which has 
greatly accelerated the breeding program 
by permitting a more rapid evaluation 
of new inbred lines and hybrids. The 
goal of the breeding program is not only 
to develop high-yielding, adapted hy- 
brids for the South, but also to develop 
hybrids that are suited to mechanical 
production. Special effort is being made 
to obtain certain characteristics such as 
uniformity, low ear placement, medium 
or short plant height, and adequate root 
and stalk strength to hold the plants 
erect until harvest. A new white hybrid 
known as Coker’s 811 has resulted from 
this painstaking work and a small amount 
of seed was offered for sale for the first 
time in the fall of 1950. This new hybrid 
has made an outstanding record in yield- 
ing ability, lodging resistance, weevil re- 
sistance, and resistance to certain dis- 
eases. These characteristics are essential 
for the production of high quality grain 
and promise to make this hybrid very 
popular in the South. 
In 1942 Miss Mary Coker, daughter 
of David R. Coker, made a cross of Tokyo 
and Nanda soybeans. The selections from 
this hybrid show great possibilities for 
high yield, high oil content, shatter and 
disease resistance. One of the most prom- 
ising selections of this hybrid is being 
increased and tested this year in several 
locations. When this bean proves its 
worth it will be distributed and sold un- 
der the name of Majos (pronounced 
May-Jos) for its breeder, Mary Coker 
Joslin. 
e Employ Scientific Methods 
In its cotton breeding work the Coker 
organization employs the use of every 
known scientific method and device for 
testing and is now concentrating on the 
breeding of early, high-yielding cottons 
of desirable staple length and good spin- 
ning quality. At the same time, Mr. 
Wilds and his staff continue to improve 
other desirable characteristics such as 
resistance to Fusarium and Verticillium 
wilts, good gin turnout, high oil content 
of seeds, and adaptability for machine 
harvesting. 
In the words of Mr. Wilds: “We are 
pouring everything we have into our 
objective. namely, a highly productive, 
highly wilt resistant, nematode resistant, 
all-purpese, 1-1/16 inch cotton that will 
more than meet any manufacturer’s re- 
quirement.” 
t vy Y 
To those who best know the history 
of this family the name Coker means 
many things in Hartsville and South 
Carolina, but to thousands of farm fami- 
lies in hundreds of communities scat- 
tered over the broad face of a resurgent 
and fruitful Southland, more than any- 
thing else .. . Coker Means Cotton. 
