An experimental cotton breeding line ( stovepipe ) with very short fruiting branches, reduced internode length and essentially no vegetative branches was compared with a commercial cultivar ('Paymaster HS26') in order to examine differences in fiber properties, trash and bark content, and spinning performance on the open-end rotor system. Sample cottons grown by the Texas A&M Research Center were obtained for the 1991 and 1993 crop years which enabled the comparison of a high-trash crop (1991) with a low-trash crop (1993). Results indicate that plant geometry may make a significant difference in trash and bark levels when growing conditions are conducive to trashy and barky cotton, but probably not when the cotton crop is generally clean. Appropriate cleaning of the cotton prior to spinning appears to take care of the differences in trash and bark so that there are no notable differences in spinning performance of the fiber from the differing plant geometries.