The BuLLETI^^ 



YIELD PER ACRE. 



It will be of interest to note that during the last five years the aver- 

 age acre yield of cotton in North Carolina was higher than that of 

 Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louis- 

 iana, Arkansas, or Tennessee, for comparison of which the following 

 table may be consulted : 



AVERAGE ACRE YIELD (In Lbs.) OF COTTON IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



(Year Book, 1910.) 



STATE 



North Carolina- 

 Texas 



Louisiana 



Arkansas 



Tennessee 



South Carolina.. 



Georgia 



Florida 



Alabama 



Mississippi 



1908 



211 

 196 

 145 

 215 

 218 

 219 

 190 

 112 

 179 

 233 



1909 



210 

 125 

 130 

 153 

 158 

 210 

 184 

 110 

 142 

 1.57 



1910 



227 

 149 

 130 

 175 

 198 

 212 

 174 

 110 

 158 

 173 



COTTON SOILS OF THE STATE 



PIEDMONT SECTION. 



Cotton is grown with more or less success on all the soils of this sec- 

 tion, not because they are equally well suited to cotton culture, but be- 

 cause the study of the relationships existing between the soils and crops 

 has not advanced far enough to enable either the farmer or the scientific 

 agriculturist to ascertain, with accuracy, just what crops will, under 

 given market conditions, yield best results on any particular type of 

 soil. That each distinct soil type should be better suited to one crop or 

 lines of crops than to others, is but a reasonable assumption ; the prob- 

 lem of the agricultural student, therefore, is to find this particular crop 

 or lines of crops, to which the particular soil type is best suited. 



Since the cotton plant is a native in its original state, at least, of insu- 

 lar and maritime regions, where the air is generally moist, seasons long, 

 and temperature uniform, it would seem that this plant is entirely out 

 of its environment when grown in the piedmont section. 



The wonderful power man has over his environment has enabled him, 

 however, to gradually extend the growth of this crop and make it a 

 leading product of the temperate zone. He has taken the cotton plant, 

 accustomed to the long-growing seasons of the tropics, and caused it to 

 so readjust its physical make up as to mature in the comparatively 

 short season of the foothills of ISTorth Carolina. 



The short season for cotton in this section is largely compensated for, 

 liowever, by the perfect surface drainage of the soils that enables them 

 to warm up earlier in the spring than soils of more open texture nearer 



