Arizona republican., 1920-01-01
Can The Dairy Cow
 Compete With Cotton
BY M. E. eEMIs

As I may have said before on divers md sundry occasions, there is no real competition between the dairy COW and cotton In fact the reverse is true for they should both have a place on prac- 1caIfy every farm in the southwest where alfalfa and cotton can he raised IS successfully as they can be in the Salt River valley.
 It matters little whether we crown cotton king and confer to the COW the itie of queen. or reverse the designa- ions. the fact that we don't want to get away from is that it Is not good Or the community as a whole or any
 arm as an individual unit to let either cows or cotton become strangers.
 With cotton worth so cents a pound IS 1t Is today, there Is a strong incen- I've to blow up every acre that will produce even fair crop and plant it 70 cotton Before this is done. how sver. one should look at every angle of the situation An acre of cotton pro- 1ucfng a bale of lint and worth s400 pr more is most certainly alluring, but there are some limiting factors and we may we'll be honest with our selves and acknowledge them, and be also fair to ourselves and play safe.
 The Maximum Crop
 Among the things that should be considered by any farmer is how to produce the maximum crop per acre with a minimum cost Obviously the maximum crop cannot be produced on land that is not adapted for it, and it IS a fact that land that has not been in alfalfa for some time, as a general thing will not produce maximum crop of cotton. Puttingthis another way around, the biggest cotton crops, with few exceptions, have been pro- duced on land that has been in alfalfa for some time, and many of these yields that are exceptional have been .arr I~.f I hot t~ l. arm for some years previous In other words the dairy farm is an ideal farm for raising cotton, but in order to make it perpetual, 1t is evident that some land must be kept in alfalfa and the product fed to livestock of some kind, or there will come time when there is no more alfalfa to blow up and the land which has produced a profita- ble crop of cotton for a number of sea- sons win fail to produce a profitable crop.
 Half Bale Average
 Therefore the limiting factor which may be styled number one in the series of limitations is the area which will produce a maximum, at least above an average crop. and the average is a approximately one half pale to the acre. The second limitation and it may be even more important than the first, Is the labor question. Most of AhC tOtlOn PAChc4S IfLlS StdSOu ana ldSI have been MeNcans that have been brought in under bond from old Mexico under special war time ruling. The provisions of this ruling require that no more be brought in after January lSr of the coming year. Unless some reans are found for bringing in labor CTS from Old Mexico, there will be no lat or available for picking next sea sons crop. It is useless to say that some means will be found, without having in sight some possible source of labor. With the labor troubles that exist in so many lines, the. danger from strikes is too great to hazard the risk of bringing in fndiscriminately labor CTS from the cities of the east
 Picking Is Big Factor
 Again the laborers that would be available from such a source would be and would not be able Q make living wages in the cotton fields, or at least many of them would not The cost of harvesting cotton even at three cents a pound amounts