J.O. Ware’s Rare Reference Book on American Upland Cotton Released Online

COTTON’S STORY — J.O. Ware bred cotton at the University of Arkansas from 1920 to 1934 when he became the senior U.S. Department of Agriculture cotton agronomist. He returned to Arkansas in 1950 and two years later released a reference book that has become available online through the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

MEDIA CONTACT

John Lovett

U of A System Division of Agriculture
479-763-5929  |  jlovett@uada.edu

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A rare 77-page reference book on American upland cotton has been made available online by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

“Origin, Rise and Development of American Upland Cotton and Their Status at Present” by J.O. Ware was first released in 1952 and offers agronomic descriptions for over two dozen types of cotton and hundreds of obsolete cotton varieties, before and after the boll weevil entered the United States in 1893. Lint properties, production statistics and history of cotton prior to cotton breeding efforts in the U.S. are also included.

Ware established a national system of cotton variety testing and bred cotton at the University of Arkansas from 1920 to 1934. He released many varieties including Arkansas Rowden 40, which was estimated to have been grown on more than 1 million acres in Arkansas in the mid-1930s — about half of the state’s cotton acres then.

In 1934, Ware became the senior U.S. Department of Agriculture cotton agronomist stationed in Beltsville, Maryland. He returned to the University of Arkansas in 1950 and had a joint appointment with the USDA and the university. Not long afterward, he made possible the establishment of the Ben J. Altheimer Chair of Cotton Research, the first chair in the Division of Agriculture. Funds from this chair were used to cover costs associated with the republication.

Fred Bourland, professor of plant breeding and genetics, edited and published the second edition online. The 50-year veteran of cotton breeding is the current Altheimer Chair for Cotton Research and Development for the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Bourland is also finalizing his third cotton rating score. The YC-Score app is under development in partnership with Cotton Incorporated to help breeders evaluate cotton breeding lines for how efficiently they produce lint.

BOURLAND’S BOLLS — Fred Bourland, an Arkansas Hall of Fame inductee and professor of plant breeding and genetics, edited and published the second edition of J.O. Ware’s cotton reference book. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

‘Historical perspective’

The cotton book is a culmination of Ware’s extensive reviews on the history of cotton breeding in the U.S. and has information that is not readily available in other publications, Bourland said.

“A lot of it was Dr. Ware’s personal experience, where he talked to people who developed the materials,” Bourland said. “As a cotton breeder and geneticist, I occasionally run across something that calls for me to look back and get a historical perspective, so the book is very valuable.”

The book may also be of interest to anyone interested in agricultural history, he said.

About 100 copies of the book were originally printed in 1952, Bourland said, and only about a dozen copies remained in the crop, soil and environmental sciences department when he returned to Arkansas from Mississippi in 1988. Bourland earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agriculture and plant breeding, respectively, at the University of Arkansas and his doctorate in genetics at Texas A&M University.

“I got permission to let one our secretaries in the department start typing it because all we had was just old mimeograph copies,” Bourland said. “The book wasn’t even bound. It was just clipped together.”

After transferring from the Fayetteville campus in 1997 to the Northeast Research and Extension Center in Keiser, the project to digitize the book got put on the backburner, Bourland said. But every now and then someone would ask about the book for cotton genetics research. He published Ware’s book online with the help of Gail Halleck, research publications editor for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, in December 2023. Since then, it has been downloaded by people from across the globe.

Bourland said his editing of the digital copy primarily included correcting typographical errors and editing some long sentences to make them easier to read and understand. Three fellow cotton breeder colleagues confirmed his opinions made with care to not change the intent of Ware’s original text.

​To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on 𝕏 at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs to all eligible persons without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.