8 The Bulletin. 



Lime. 



The percentage of lime in this plant seems to be quite constant un- 

 der different fertilizer treatments, the average per cent found in the 

 different parts of the dry mature plant being, 3.38 per cent in the 

 leaves; .13 per cent in the seed; .19 per cent in the lint; and .54 per 

 cent in the remainder of the plant taken together. As is seen, the 

 leaves contain from six to twenty-six times as high per cent of this 

 material as any other portion of' the plant. The presence here in 

 such proportionate large quantities is probably, in the main, due to 

 two causes, viz.: (1) the leaves being the workshops of the plant, 

 the lime which is taken up by its roots in large quantities is conducted 

 through the stem to the leaves, where the amount essential for nutri- 

 tive purposes is elaborated into proper form and dispatched where 

 needed, while the excess, as is indicated, is stored, in some harmless 

 compound or compounds, principally in the cells of the leaves; (2) it 

 is an essential component of compounds entering normally into the 

 composition of chlorophyll bodies which must be present in the 

 leaves for assimilative processes to go on and new cells to be formed. 



LINT. 



The fiber is the main product for which the cotton plant is grown. 

 Its proportion of the entire plant generally ranges from 10 to 11 

 per cent, and of the seed-cotton from 28 to 45 per cent. But these 

 relations are governed to a considerable extent by the factors of sea- 

 son, soil, seed, fertilization, and cultivation. 



Composition. — Cotton fiber is composed largel.y of cellulose, with 

 smaller amounts of water, ash, protein, carbohydrates, fats, etc. As 

 an average of the analyses recorded in Table I, it contains in an 

 air-dried condition, 4.77 per cent water; 1.56 per cent ash; .11 per 

 cent phosphoric acid ; .62 per cent potash ; .28 per cent nitrogen, and 

 .18 per cent lime. Hence, it is seen that if only lint is sold from the 

 farm cotton is one of the least, if not the least, in proportion to pe- 

 cuniary returns, exhaustive crops grown, as the value of the fertilizing 

 constituents contained in a 500-pound bale of lint cotton is on an aver- 

 age only about forty cents, of which about 57 per cent of it is due to 

 nitrogen alone. On the other baud, it should be remembered that the 

 selling of seed-cotton from the farm makes cotton a more exhaustive 

 crop upon the fertility of the soil than corn at the present average 

 annual yield of these crops for this State. Most of the substances 

 contained in the lint were derived from the atmosphere, and hence 

 are supplied to the gi-owiug plants in tlie greatest abundance and 

 without cost to the producer. 



Structure of Lint. — Fresh and mature individual cotton-fibers of 

 the upland type — the one to which our ^orth Carolina varieties be- 

 long — when examined in the field with a microscope present the gen- 



