The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1909-05-14
COTTON N HAWAII.

pertinent Station which has, beer
working for several years on Thu
staple, and there is every indication
that il will come 10 be a very i'm
portant product Of the islands withir
a short time. As a result OF sew.
eral highly satisfactory experiment
crops raised by the station, half {
dozen paintings have been made or
q commercial basis in various sec
tions, 100 acres or more having
been planted in all.
Ia the matter of the discoveries
referred to, the expert mentors be
Iieve that instead Of planting the
crop as an annual. as is the custom
in nearly all of the cotton produc-
ing countries, ii viii here be found
most profitable as a perennial. and
experiments are being carried on to
determine the point definitely, Dur
ing the Civil War, when cotton
prices went up to the neighhorhood
OF one dollar per pound, quite a lit
tie industry was built up in Ila-
wali in cotton growing, but after
the war it was neglected and finally
abandoned altogether. The cotton
plants from that time have grown
wild, and without frost have coutln-
ued to grow year after year, until
trees from fifteen to thirty feet high.
having q girth Of trunk twelve to
fifteen inches or more, are common.
Some OF these old cotton trees are
known to be from fifteen to twenty
years old, and are still bearing
heavily, although the quality of the
product is not OF the best. Fred
erick G. Krauss, Of the Experiment
Station force, who has had charge
of the cotton experiment, believes
that by proper pruning it will be
possible to produce much heavier
crops per acre from plants several
years old, than would be possible
under the best conditions when
grown as an annual.
Another discovery made by Mr..
krauss is that cotton may be grown
from cuttings as we'll as from seed,
and one Of the experimental grow
ers has further proved that it is
very easy to bud or graft cotton
from one stock to another. The
value of these discoveries would
seem to be in the fact that the I'M
certainty Of growing cotton from
seed may be entirely dispensed with.
Cotton growers generally. under
stand the difficulty of keeping up
the standard, for the reason that
cotton is one of the most easily
crossed plants of any; bees and
other insects carrying pollen from
one blossom to another for consid-
cradle distances, thus mixing the
strains. BY planting only from
cuttings, or by budding, this diff
Guilty will be entirely removed and
would seem to be practicable in
case it proves practicable not to
plant every year.
Still another discovery in this
connection, is of much interest, and
may prove Of great value. 1t APP
pears that there is a cotton indig-
enous to Hawaii, although of no
commercial value. The boil is very |
small, the staple short, and in color
a light brown. The qualities which
seem to make it Of great Importance
provided ii can be successfully |
crossed with standard strains, are
its wonderful drouth resistance, and
its color. This native cotton was
found by Mr.. Krauss growing on an
almost barren plain, where the rain
fall for the entire year can scarcely
be more than eight or ten inches.
This quality Of resistance, if it can
be transmitted to standard cottons,
would make it invaluable for much
land in Hawaii is now practically
valueless. The color would seem
be also worth preserving, if pos
The Experiment Station on two
patches, neither Of
Mr.. Krauss states, were un-
der ideal conditions, produced in
one crop at the rate Of 400 and 700
OF Sea Island cotton per acre
respectively. Samples sent TO mills
in Georgia, the Carolinas and to
r-nrn hy All rrocouuonJ 49,,