Arizona republican., 1920-10-24

the development In Arizona Of the re- markable Pima type of cotton. has been spending the last few weeks in the Salt River valley and at the Saca- ton Indian agency, carefully studying the cotton situation from the stand point of maintaining a pure type Of seed. MT. Kearney just left for Wash lngton, and before leaving was induced to make a careful statement on the very vital question of pure Pima seed. which follows:
 Pure Planting Seed Of Pima Cotton
 In 1921"
 The greatest difficulty in the way of continuous production of long staple | cotton is that of keeping the seed pure. It has been the experience of every lO- | cality fin the world where fine cotton | is grown that sooner or later-usually | sOoner-the varities run out and have to be replaced by new ones, fresh from the hands of the breeder. Egypt is a case in point. During the past 25 years at least a dozen varieties. each worthy to serve as the basis of a per- manent industry, have been grown on a large scale in that country. But as soon as a variety began to be culu- vated extensively deterioration com menced and after a few years 1t was discarded and a new favorite held the stage for a while.
 Much of the same has been the ex- perience of the older long staple cot ton regions of the United States. The | owners of certain plantations in the Sea Island district. however. by select ing every year the best plants in their fields. ginning the seed cotton from these plants separately on hand gins and planting the seed in isolated patches for increase. were able to maintain the purity and high quality of their stocks during long periods The product of such a plantation was often sold year after year to the same ! spinner of fancy cotton, who, being acquainted with the precautions taken to keep the seed pure. knew that he could depend upon obtaining from this source the uniform and high grade cot ton which his business required.
 Community Production of a Single
 Variety
 Mir. O. F. Cook of the bureau of plant industry. U. S. department of agricul- ture, is entitled to the credit of hay ing shown convincingly that a com mercial variety of long staple cotton may be maintaiIfed indefinitely in a high state of purity. By community production of a single variety. chosen after its thorough adaptability to the climate and soil of the locality has been demonstrated.
 There is no evidence that a variety of cotton will degenerate or run out" spontaneously, when kept apart from other varieties. Bua if more than one kind of cotton. is grown in the same locality, bees carry the pollen from one field to another and the resulting hy- bridization soon destroys the uniform ity of both varieties. Moreover. if two kins of cotton are handled at the samC gin, the seed will inevitably become mixed. Both of these causes of deter ioration of carefully selected varieties have been operative in Egypt and 1T the long staple cotton districts of tn, United States. As Mir Cook has re- gently pointed out, in the old day. when each l arge plantation in thu South had its own gin. choice varietie. : of cotton could be 'skept up" mucl . longer than under modern conditions O custom ginning.
 Introduction of the Pima Variety These considerations were uppermos in the minds of the committee or Southwestern cotton culture of the U S. department of agriculture, when tn time came to introduce the Pim; variety to cotton growers in the Sal River valley. This variety was de veloped at the cooperative testing sta ton at Sacaton and owed its origin t
 
 in1910 in a field of the Yuma variety The progeny of this plant. grown il 1911, proved to be remarkably uniform \ and very different from the Yuma type Selection was carried on for severa years under conditions of isolation from other cottons. When grown on field scale at Sacaton the Pima variet was found to yield we'll and to hay desirable cultural characters. Test: | fv- lecturers, demonstrated the high spin ming value of the fibre.
 Convinced of the superiority of tn \ new variety, the department of agri culture was confronted with the prob lem of how to bring about the substi tuition of Pima for Yuma, which wa at that time commercially grown fin tn Salt River valley, without mixing tn \ two varieties. Fortunately the direo tors of the Tempe Cotton exchang
 became interested in the proect an offered their cooperation. A numbe of farmers in the vicinity of Temp
 whose ranches adjoined agreed K plant only Pima cotton in 1916. I'll N fields were located at a sufficient dis
 tance from the nearest Yuma cotto
 to insure a satisfactory degrees of isC
 lation. When the seed cotton ws
 harvested the exchange gin wa M
 of Pima and the seed of the ne E variety was sacked and labelled as came from the gins. Seed enough VI;
 obtained to plant several thousar
 acres in a continuous block in 1917 ar in 1918 the substitution of Pima f Yuma was practically comple throughout the Salt River valley. Maintenance of the Pure Seed Supp
 This project was so we'll handled ' tho Tempe Cotton exchange that { department of agriculture has co
 tinued it's cooperation with that c - ganization in maintaining a supply
 pure Pima planting seed. Every sur
 mer agents of the department ''rogu
 large field, examining ever plant a
 removing all which appear to be q II generate or off-type. The total nun
 Der of plants examined is usually abo
 one million and on the average two
 every jthousand are pulled up.
 The seed cotton from this field
 stored until the gin can be clean
 thoroughly and is then run throu
 and the seed is sacked and carefu
 labelled so as to distinguish it fri
 all other planting seed. The followi
 year compact acreage is planted W
 the "rogued" seed and this acres
 has furnished the supply for gene
 planting the second year after 1
 roguing.
 Failure of the Plan in 1920
 The plan worked satisfactorily UT
 this year, when owing to the vast
 crease in the acreage planted and
 unprecedentedly large amount of