498 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



paratively little expenditure for fertilizers or for increased labor. 

 This problem, as well as methods which will result in the saving of 

 labor on various crops and enterprises, is being studied throughout 

 the entire area. 



COTTON BELT. 



A number of factors, even aside from the stress of the war situa- 

 tion, have contributed to making the problems of management in the 

 cotton States extremely difficult. The advance of the boll weevil 

 toward the Atlantic coast, labor difficulties, the increasing need for 

 production of home supplies, the increased demand for feed crops, 

 and the decreasing yield occasioned by lack of available fertilizers, 

 have all contributed to making more difficult the problems of farm- 

 ing in many of the cotton-growing areas. The work of the Office of 

 Farm Management in this region has been directed particularly to 

 the development of systems of live-stock farming in areas where 

 live-stock raising can be made a profitable enterprise, where the pro- 

 duction of feed crops is feasible, and in general to the development of 

 farming systems that will be safe and sufficiently diversified to in- 

 sure a maximum use of labor on profitable enterprises. Particular 

 attention has been directed to the use of cover crops and green ma- 

 nure. Especially valuable results have been obtained through a 

 study of rotations in the Piedmont section, where farmers have used 

 clover extensively and successfully. 



CORN-BELT STATES. 



Investigations of certain problems of management of farms in the 

 corn belt have been continued. These investigations pertain par- 

 ticularly to the question of saving labor and to fitting certain crops 

 into the farming system. Very valuable data have been obtained 

 as to harvesting crops by live stock, a practice that is rapidly gain- 

 ing in favor in all parts of the Central States. A study has been 

 made to determine the place that alfalfa should occupy in corn-belt 

 agriculture, and the experiences of a large number of corn-belt 

 farmers who have grown alfalfa have been drawn upon in this in- 

 vestigation. The most difficult feature of the problem of growing 

 alfalfa in the corn belt is the question of harvesting the first crop 

 of alfalfa, which must be cut when corn urgently demands cultiva- 

 tion. The solution seems to lie partly in improved methods of har- 

 vesting the alfalfa hay. 



OHIO VALLEY AND OZARK REGION. 



The large belt of farming area situated between the corn belt on 

 the north and the cotton belt on the south and extending from the 

 Appalachians to the western borders of the Ozarks is one to which 

 very little attention has hitherto been given in the way of develop- 

 ing profitable systems of farming or the maintenance and upbuild- 

 ing of soil fertility. Only recently has the Office of Farm Manage- 

 ment given specific attention to the problems of this region, but 

 already investigations indicate that improved systems of farming can 

 be developed which will effect a marked gain in the profits to be de- 

 rived from agriculture in this region, mainly through improved prac- 

 tices which will increase crop yields. 



