10. ENCLOSURE TO PART III.
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Milligan) stated that he thought the
question one of sufficient importance to ask some institute, such as
the Cotton Research Station at Trinidad, to investigate it in all its
aspects, if local investigations which various members said they would
undertake proved insuffiient.
The Section generally approved of this suggestion.
8. Mass METHODS FOR MAINTAINING THE QUALITY oF COTTON SEED.
Mr. KIRBY (Director of Agriculture, Tanganyika) attended for
this item and made a prepared statement to the Section, as follows : —
By the quality of cotton seed is meant here its capacity to
produce good cotton.
Mass selection in plantations is carried out by going through the
plots and marking the plants of type and (roughly) cotton quality
required, and using these as sources of seed, the process being
repeated in each season.
Mass selection in districts is effected by choosing for supplying
seed the plants on farms or parts of farms that show good and
success ul characters where no advantage as far as can be ascertained
accrues through exceptionally favourable. environment. Arrangements
are made for the acquisition of the seed, which is distributed specially,
under control and under guarantee from trustworthy recipients, who
in increasing numbers grow succeeding crops from it under particular
arrangements for acquiring the resulting seed-cotton. Parallel to
this, the work described in the first part of this paragraph is continued
in every Season.
Another method is similar to the last described; but it consists in
acquiring {rom a (neighbouring) country or district in the country itself
seed, in large quantity, that comes from an area or areas in which the
quality is known to be good, and taking similar care to grow it apart
from all other seed and to avoid mixing as regards the seed produced.
This is mass introduction, rather than mass selection, and requires
care to ensure that: (1) the growing conditions in the receiving
country are sufficiently similar to those of the country of origin to
make ‘it likely that there will be no general failure through
introduction Into unsuitable conditions; (2) no risk is taken of the
introduction of insect pests.
The last method in mind is direct mass selection of the seed.
Enquiry has shown that in Upland (and Egyptian) cotton the best
lint comes from the fuzzy seeds, not from the partly covered or
nearly naked seeds; and that fuzziness is recessive to nakedness (see
Agl. Journ., India, XX, 1925, 37). Thus in practice (actually in
Egypt) manual or mechanical removal of seeds that are not fuzzy
should leave a suppy of seed capable of producing lint better than that
from the general. Ordinary hand-picking, by women and children, is
slow for the purpose; and is (it is understood) hastened for output in
Egypt by passing the seed along the row of hand-pickers on an endless
belt travelling at a suitable speed. A mechanical means for effecting
the separation would be valuable.
These and other methods of mass selection are not of course a
substitute for narrower methods of selection (progeny rows, ete.) or
for cotton-breeding. They are useful for supplementing the latter,
especially where haste is thought to be required. and in the early

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