The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-04-10
COTTON GROWING
 SPREADING OVER
 WESTERN STATES
California and Arizona May Be Rated With South
 ern Territory.

l The cotton belt of the United States 1 may be expanded, and perhaps at
 some future time California and Ari-
 zona may be rated among the cotton
 states. When one thinks of cotton
 production in this country, the names
 of Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Ala
 bama, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
 and even Florida come at once to | mind, and it may not be generally
 known that Virginia, Tennessee and l Missouri figure somewhat prominent l ly in cotton statistics, and that some cotton is produced in Kansas, Ken lucky and New Mexico, says the Wash ington Star.
 That part of Maryland which lies close to Washington was once a pro- ducer of cotton in small quantities for home manufacture, and it is very like
 ly that some of the farmers who till ed the lands on which the city of Washington has grown up raised cot ton in connection with tobacco. In a census bulletin on cotton production in the United States, one may read this interesting paragraph:
 ''The first effort to cultivate cotton in the United States was made in Vir- ginia, in 1921. Later, experiments in cotton culture were made in Maryland. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jer- sey, but conditions of climate in those states were fourid unsuitable. It was
 then introduced in South Carolina in 1733 and into Georgia in 1734. It
 was being grown in Louisiana in 1741. The crop in 1790 produced 3.138 equivalent bales of 500 pounds each; S79 of which were exported" The Virginia counties in which cot ton growing is an established indus try are Brunswick, Greensville, Nanse- l mond, Norfolk and Southampton. California is looming up as a cot ton state, according to the belief of some of those who are called Cali forniacs.'' Imperial valley is at pres ent the chief cotton section of the Golden state and one of the loyal sons of California has said that 95.- 900 bales of cotton were produced in that valley last season, and it is computed that the Imperial valley crop for 1917 should be not less than 150.000I bales.
 Of course, these are rather trihing figures when compared with the four million-bale crops of Georgia, but it is said to be only a beginning. Among the varieties of cotton grown in Cali fornia are Upland. Egyptian and Du- rango.
 In discussing the cotton possibili- has reported that Imperial valley, in southern California, is well adapted to the cultivation of cotton. The sec tion has very rich soil. warm cli- mate, a long season and, situated as it is, on a lower level than the Color ado river, it has the further advan- tage of being easily irrigated. The yield is high and the staple has length, strength and uniformity, characteris- tics which are very desirable, and due in part to the absence of periods of drought or of excessive rains.
 The high cost of labor for picking cotton is the main drawback, while the suitability of the land for other crops restricts to some extent cotton culture,1 cotton has been grown in the Imperial valley on 8 commercial basis for only a few years, and in 1915 there were only 5,986 bales gin- ned. while last year @. California. sta- tistician says that 95,000 bales were grown, and he makes the prophecy that 150, 1000 bales will be grown next summer.
 It has been pointed out by the gov ernment that the statistics for Cali fornia include some cotton grown in Lower California or Mexico and brought into the United States to be ginned. The same conditions of soil and climate are found in the Mexico portion of the Imperial valley as in the American, while the cost of cul- tivating and picking is less because of the availability of Chinese labor
 Arizona is making it's bid as a cot ton-growing state. It is said that the larger part of the Arizona cotton has the same characteristics as the cotton grown in Egypt, having been propa- gated from seed brought from that country. The cotton is grown or ir- rigated land, and the average yield is high. As in the case of California, it is said by the government experts that the suitability of the land for grow ing other and possibly more remun- erative crops will tend to restrict the cultivation of cotton.
 It seems not to be generally known that cotton culture was once much more widely spread in the United States than now. It is known that as late as 1S40 cotton was grown in Indiana, Illinois, Maryland and Della ware, and under the stimulus of high prices following the civil war there was cotton growing, with quite a mea- sure of success, in West Virginia, Ne vada, California and Utah.