Arizona republican., 1921-12-18

good germinaton, and free from plant diseases.
 Low Cost of Pure Seed
 While these precautions concern ing the seed supply involve certain amount of additional expense, it has been possible. nevertheless to provide this higR grade planting seed at price very much below the ruling prices in other cotton producing se- lections, which are S100 to $250 per ton.
 Difficulties involved
 There is one practical difficulty in the present system of providing an adequate supply of planting seed to which your committee wishes to in vite attention and if possible work out a remedy. The difficulty is this: It is not now possible to forecast at the close of the cotton growing sea- son how much seed will be required for planting the following spring. It has been planned to save an ade- quate supply of seed to meet all re- quirements, but since the cost of de- linting, sacking, storage and insur- ance is a material one, it is not good business to carry over very large surplus of planting seed unless the
  whole community of cotton growers.
 In the fall of 1919 it was realized that the planting requirements for 1920 would probably be great and a very large supply of planting seed was saved. but the acreage exceeded the most liberal estimates of the pre- vious autumn and in addition there was a heavy demand for seed for re planting. caused by adverse climatic condition during the early spring. As a result of this combination of circumstances, the supply of planting seed was completely exhausted and it was necessary at last to use some seed from local oil mill stocks.
 Unfortunate Results From Poor Seed The use of this oil mill seed, all though small had some most unfor- tunate effects. The crop resulting from the seed was not uniform and much of it was of poor quality. Some of this mixed type of cotton was forced onto the market last fall, and was purchased as Pima cotton by eastern mills. Its poorer quality was soon discovered in the process of manufacture and caused a wide spread rumor that Pima was deterio- rating. This rumor though quite un- founded, has caused some trouble in marketing the bulk of the 1920 crop. This incident shows very plainly how important it is to the whole commu- niW of cotton growers that only pure Pima seed be used for planting. The use of even a small quantity of in- ferior seed seriously injures the repu- tation and reduces the market value of the whole crop.
 Now as to the remedy. In order to avoid the unfortunate experience of the planting season of 1920, we should make provision for saving enough pure planting seed to meet all reasonable requirements, both for planting and replanting. If we do this by putting into storage a supply of planting seed large enough to meet all possible requirements. even in case of a large increase in acreage, we shall incur an additional burden of cost on the seed actually used if it is not all planted. One alternative is to attempt to require that each prospective cotton grower shall take an option on a sufficient quantity of cotton seed to meet his requirements for the following season and then as- sume the carryover if this planting program is changed. which is inn practical. In any event, we feel that it is of the utmost importance to the | whole community that no other seed l ltldH pure SSAtNAC0 AilAc@ @ONA " 1 planted.
 No Deterioration
 l It is sometimes stated that the l quality of the Pima variety is de- | teriorating. This is contrary to the ] facts. Each year since Pima has beer ] grown on a commercial scale in the
 Salt River valley a substantial pro- 1 portion of the crop has been classed | by competent experts and compared l with the government standards oi | grade and staple. The records oi 1 these comparisons show that tho quality of the crop is being fully maintained and that the variety i: not deteriorating
 Furthermore, the yield of the va 1 riety is being maintained. Carefu 1 comparisons are made each year be- ! tween paintings of seed from tht