Imperial Valley press., 1909-08-21
BEST COTTON REGION
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will astonish cotton men with its yield The May patch is in fine shape showing an average of fifty bolls to the stock, with promise of as many more.
 Wilsie has an acre of Egyptian cot ton, planted at request of the govern ment experimenters at Yuma. The plants are much taller than the up land cotton stocks, but are we'll loaded with bolls. One stock a sport or variety accidentally introduced with the ordinary Egyptian seed, has 175 perfect bolls. The seed from this stock will be segregated and carefully pre- served for planting next year. It is Egyptian cotton in all essential char acteristics, but in some respects the growth differs from all other stocks in the field.
 The ten-acre field on the Buttram place south of El Centro is the best cotton patch seen on the trip The rows are three feet apart and the plants in the rows about two feet apart, and the stand is perfect. Be- cause of the evenness of the stand and the regularity of growth the Buttram field promises to give the heaviest yield to the acre. It shows better than bale to the acre now, and is still growing and putting on"
 Among the cotton fields visited were L. Poston's 60 acres, J. Mayfield's 20 acres, J. l.. Atkins, acres, J. s. Browns acres, and acres on the Vencill tract. All show good growth. Sprouse and Waite have fields of 20 and 50 acres southeast of El Centro, and experts who have seen them re- port them in first rate condition.
 There are many small fields scatter ed about the valley, and it is not pos sible to say exactly what the aggre- gate cotton acreage is, but it is cer- tainly up to 1000 acres and may reacn 1500 Allowing for partial failures re- sulting from improper irrigation and lack of experience of some growers it looks like a certainty that more ed this year, and reasonable possi" bility that the crop may be 1000 bales. The price of cotton now is 12 cents a pound, or $60 bale, and seed is worth $15 a ton. The gross revenue from cotton may be anywhere from $3O,OOO to $75,O00 this year
 Many Mexicans have come into the valley to pick cotton and are waiting for the work to begin. It may be the fields to numbers of Cocopah In dians, who should make good pickers. At 75 cents a hundred pounds, labor CTS of that class can make good wages. The Texans believe person can pick twenty-five or thirty per cem more cotton here than in the south. They tried picking last Sunday and found it easy to get all the locks ouj of 9 boil at one grab. The bolls gle dry and there is no gum to hold the locks. The locks also are very heavy. An expert picker, they say, should easily average 400 pounds a day.
 While Southern cotton in Imperial Valley is making remarkable show ing, it is not entirely monopolizing the attention of valley ranchers, as Egyptian cotton is demonstrating this year it's adaptability to this climate.
 From seed furnished by the Govern ment Experimental Station at Yuma early in the spring tracts of from an acre to an acre and half have been planted by W. D. Wilsie and E. B. Forester, near Fl Centro, Frank H. Stanley, at Brawley and F. G. Ravens at Holtville. In each case the growth has been very promising.
 MT. Ravens made a close inspection of his acre and half patch of Egyp- tian cotton, just south of Holtville, during the past week, and reports that the weeds are four to six feet in height and setting freely with bolls.l Some of the bolls are now open, while other stocks have their squares just forming. MT. Havens believes that he now has fully bale of cotton on