The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1920-09-30
DEVELOPS A WILT COTTON.
Point Is Reached Where Seed Will
Be Thrown on Market.
Florence Times.


Florence Times.
The successful breeding Of a wilt
resistant cotton, which will meet bold
weevil conditions, is announced by
DR.. L. o. Watson, of Florence, who
represents the United States govern
in scientific research, experiment and
effort covering the past ten years.
After a decade of work, this expert.
who, at one time had charge Of all
the wilt resistant investigation and
control work of the United States,
has produced a plant which has been
proved by trials in any western and
southern states, on wilt infected lands
under severest boil weevil conditions
to meet all Of the requirements of
these two-fold pests.
AS briefly described by the breed
er. this new cotton is a hybrid Of the
famous Triumph cotton, which en-
abled Texas to continue growing cot
ton after the appearance Of the boil
weevil in that state from Mexico, and
of the Dixie variety, which was one
of the earliest and most successful
strains developed by the government
to overcome the cotton wilt. 1t is
named the Dixie Triumph. The first
ATTEMPTS at breeding were made by
DR.. Watson 10 years ago, on this
cross. Since then all efforts have
been centered on a production true to
type, combining in proper proper
tion the characteristic of each of the
the originals. The result today is an
early variety, of medium size stalk,
exceptionally large bolls for wilt re-
sistant cotton, and good yielder.
All these experiments and breed
ing have been conducted on the place
of the late J. G.. C. Brunson, about
three miles from Florence. Mr.. Brun-
son tended 10 the growing end of the
business till his death this spring.
Incidentally Mr.. Brunson achieved
such noteworthy and commendable
results in cotton improvements that
Clemson college conferred upon him
the diploma of merit, of which it has
issued less than half dozen, in recog-
milton of the benefits he had produced
for Southern agriculture. DR.. Wat
son handled all of the breeding work.
Of late, he has had associated with
him Z. E. Hall, of Clemson college.
in 1917, when the breeder made
his first general tests of his new breed
in South Carolina, his seed were
planted on 400 acres of wilt infected
lanos. At 2SS cents per pound, the
users of these seed estimated, by care
full check on their crops, that the in
creased production alone brought
them IN S127,120.12. DR.. Watson
has not tabulated any more recent re-
ports on his seed in this way. How
ever, he has had them tried out in
Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas and
Texas, where both weevil and wilt
have been most damaging, and the
general results reported have been
increased yields of from double to
four times any other varieties. Glenn
son college has tested the new variety
and highly recommends 1t.
In instance and typical of the per-
formance of this variety, when DR..
Watson began his experiments here
10 years ago, the land on the Brun-
son place which he elected for his
work was yielding less than a quarter
Of a bale to the acre and some sea
sons the production was only one
bale to 10 acres. Today he is picking
a bale to bale and one-half TO the
acre and is striving to increase this
yield even more. In this connection,
DR.. Watson selected the place of Mr.
Brunsou because il was so uniformly
and severely infected with the cotton
wilt.