4 The Bulletin. 



annual profits of the farmers of North Carolina by about $3,400,000, 

 allowing sixty cents per bushel for shelled corn and three and one-half 

 cents per pound for seed cotton. This does not appear, with the hearty 

 co-operation of farmers, such a far-distant possibility, in the light of 

 results obtained during the past six years in our testing of varieties 

 of corn and cotton. Take, for example, the results of our variety 

 tests at the Edgecombe farm* during this time. In comparative 

 variety tests of corn, with the number of varieties in the different 

 tests varying from eight to twenty-nine, we have found the differ- 

 ence between the one yielding the highest and the one the lowest 

 amount of shelled corn per acre in the individual tests to range 

 from 6.2 to 15.2 bushels. With cotton the range of difference in the 

 different tests has been all the way from 530 to 790 pounds of seed 

 cotton per acre, when from seven to twenty-three varieties were used 

 in the different tests. It must not be forgotten that the best distanc- 

 ■ ing of any crop is principally dependent upon soil fertility, while 

 yield of a variety is governed largely by soil fertility and adaptability 

 and by the rigidity with which selection of seed of desirable charac- 

 teristics has been made. 



LOCATION AND CHAKACTER OF SOILS OF TEST FARMS. 



Edgecombe Farm. — This farm is located in Edgecombe County, 

 about midway between the towns of Tarboro and Rocky Mount, and 

 about two miles from Kingsboro, a station on the Atlantic Coast 

 Line Railway. 



The soil of this farm consists, principally, of sandy loam, with 

 moderately fine sand, underlaid by a rather tenacious sandy clay 

 subsoil at a depth, generally, of from 8 to 12 inches. The subsoil is a 

 moderately good sandy clay, such as is found under the larger portion 

 of the lands of the eastern part of the State. This type of soil 

 responds very readily in remunerative crops to proper fertilization 

 and cultivation, and represents a large and important part of the 

 coastal plain formation, which comprises something like forty per 

 cent of the total area of the State. It is the type of soil desigTiated 

 by the National Bureau of Soils as Norfolk fine sandy loam. 



Red Springs Farm. — This farm is situated in the coastal plain 

 region, about one mile east of the corporate limits of the town of 

 Red Springs in Robeson County, on a coarse, sandy soil that has a 

 sandy clay subsoil from 12 to 15 inches below the surface. This 

 type of soil is found in considerable areas in the eastern and south- 

 eastern portions of the State, and being of a dry nature and warming 

 up early in the spring, it is especially adapted to the gTowth of 

 truck and otlier crops where early maturity is an important consid- 

 eration. Although this type of soil is not as strong as that found 

 on the Edgecombe farm it will produce fairly good yields under lib- 

 eral fertilization and proper cultivation and rotation of crops. 



•The results at the Edfrecombe farm are taken for these comparisons because, it being the old- 

 est farm, we have data for a greater number of years. 



