One possible explanation, the changes happened accidentally in a region with long growing season and then were introduced to the sea islands. In the 1960s and 1970s, S. G. Stephens performed an experiment where he hybridized a "G. barbadense" with short coarse fibers and long growing season with a wild form of "G. hirsutum" that had the same short fiber and long growing season, but the fibers were fine. It seemed reasonable the resulting plant produced fine fibers, but was surprised to find it also had long fiber and short growing season. He then demonstrated this could be rather easily back-hybridized (see introgression) to form a cotton that retained these desirable characteristics, yet was almost entirely "G. barbadense". He argued that such an event could have happened accidentally in the 18th century, resulting in the long, fine fiber "G. barbadense" of today. However, since this event could not have happened in the sea islands, it is not sufficient to explain the sea island's distinctive product.