Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1920-11-20
PRESENT COTTON SITUATION TO
 BRING BENEFITS

Phoenix, Ariz.-The long staple cotton industry is suffering the seal brown taste of the morning after, in the opinion of Hon. Frederick H. Newell, former director of the United States Reclamation Service, who has just completed 3,000-mile auto trip through the various regions of the West where long staple cotton of various grades is being grown.
 But the dark brown taste is Oftcl the thing that starts one on the way to reform, and in the opinion of Mr. Newell the discomforts of the present will prove beneficial to the long staple cotton industry as well as to agricul ture generally in the region where cotton is grown: It will kill off the one-crop idea and promote crop rota ton.
 The journey of Mr. Newell took him through the fields of Parker, Blythe, the San Joaquin Valley, the regions about Bakersfield, Fresno, into the Imperial Valley, and the Otis-Chand Ter lands in Mexico. He also has in spected the region of the Salt River Valley, the cradle of the industry at Sacaton, and the country about Tue son and Yuma.
 Depression in Industry.
 The trip was undertaken to secure, as MT. Newell says, birdseye view of the cotton situation, general outlook upon the future as we'll as the present of it. He found a general state of de- pression in the industry, the result of several causes. One was the low price and the absence of a market. Another was the recklessness with which so many had gone into it as a gamble; the high rentals they had paid for land and high wages of in efficient labor.
 He found on his tour a great deal of good cotton, some moderately good and some very poor fields, the result of lack of attention, Many of the fields, he said, would not be picked at all. The growers were discouraged by the condition of their crops, and by labor difficulties. They had re- ceived crop advances and were now ready to quit.
 Everywhere, said Mr. Newell, the question is, "What of the long staple cotton industry He found that this year crops had been planted at great CT cost than many of the growers could hope to get out of them. They paid too high rent, too much for labor. They knew little Or nothing about the industry. Allured by the profits that growers had made in previous years under more favorable conditions, they regarded cotton grow ing as a gamble and went in.
 Many farmers, also allured, plowed up their fields and at ruinous expense went into cotton farming, men who should never have engaged in the in dustry at all.
 Too Many Amateurs.
 In many cases the growers have failed because of a lack of knowledge of farming. For instance, on the warmer, richer soils, like those of the Imperial Valley, many of the growers were without a knack of irrigation knowledge with the result that their cotton has grown like trees, into cord wood, rather than cotton. The lower branches have fallen down and bolls appear only on the upper ones.
 The best cotton, he had seen, MT. Newell said, was in the Salt River Valley, the Weed Patch," southeast of Bakersfield and Kearney Park, west of Fresno. The latter was a do- nation by the Kearney estate of San Francisco to the University of Cali fornia and is used as a great eXperi- mental station. Several hundred acres have been planted to Pima cot ton under the direction of the agricul- tural department of the university. There is a special gin there for the cotton raised in the park, so that the