Arizona republican., 1914-04-12
SUPERIOR QUALITY LONG
 STAPLE COTTON POSSIBLE

Long staple cotton of superior qual- l ty can be grown to advantage in many parts of the cotton belt if the farmer can can be given a more direct interest 1 in preserving the purity and uniform ty of his crop This interest will come
 only as a result of greater discrimina i tion in buying on the part of manu- l lecturers Buyers must cease taking inferior mixed fiber and paying as
 much for it as for the best and most
 uniform if they really wish to encour- age the production of long staple cot tons in America. The facts are 1 brought out in the bulletin, The Rela ton of Cotton Buying to Cotton Crow ing
 FormerlT manufacturers have com plaired that the supply of long staple cotton Was inadcq''5 t. and uncertain.
 says the bulletin The boil Weevil was supposed to have made it almost inn
 possible to grow long staple varieties.
 but this danger has been overcome.
 New early mlu'cing varieties of long staple cotton have been developed
 Improved methods of culture have made it possible to produce good crops of th's cotton in many parts of the United States, despite the presence of he boil WeeviI. Natural conditions favor it's production, and almost un- limited supplies may be grown if the farmers will only be encouraged to take more care in maintaining their cotton at high standard
 It rests largely with the commercial world of manufacturers and buyers to determine what kind of fiber the far mer shall produce today. Many dis tricts of the cotton belt and the newly settled irrigated regions of the south west are ready and adapted for the long staple variety if the market price warrants it's production.
 The presence of the boil Weevi is now an additional reason for growing long staple instead of short t-staple cot ton The extra care and precautions that are required to protect the cotton against the weevl make it possible to produce better staple Thus the growing of long staple cotton to sell at q higher price may be considered as a means of securing return for the in creased cost of production or the d- minished yield that may be caused by the boil Weevil
 The fact that some of the varieties with highest lint percentages produce extremely short. inferior fiber does not interfere with the planting of such va rieties as long as the farmer can sell A inch cotton for as much as 1 inch cotton or even 1 1s inch cotton. The popularity of these short t-linted vari- cities is a result of the present system of buying. In former decades. when the quality of the fiber was considered. nobody would have thought of grow ing such cotton or of breeding such varieties. In addition to their inferior lint. the high percentage varieties us uallv have smaller seeds and weaker seedlings. very undesirable character from the agricultural standpoint. Ii is easier to secure higher percentages by selecting variations toward small seeds than to increase the amount of lint on the seeds
 Manufacturers have assumed or have been led to suppose that the dangers threatening the cotton industry were purely agricultural, such as the eX- haustion of the soil change of climate, or attacks of the boil Weevil, and this makes it harder for them to understand that the primary causes of deteriora
 ton in the quality of the fiber have been commercial rather than agricul-  tura This does not mean, of course, that there are not many other agricul- tural improvements that need to be made but it does mean that the man.
 ufacturers should take greater care to
 see that the farmer has the necessary inducement to plant superior varieties and to adopt the more careful methods