The Bulletin. 63 



first to be removed. The continued use of such soils for the production of hoed 

 crops, and farming systems that prohibit rather than necessitate a covering of 

 vegetation, encourage a rapid decomposition, dissolving out and washing away 

 of the first requisite of our soil's fertility, decomposing vegetation or humus. 

 The paramount desideratum in each and every dependence of the farmer upon 

 the soil is fertility or capacity for plant production— the production of the 

 largest yield of the best quality at the least cost, and at the same time leaving 

 the soil in a better condition of fertility for the production of future crops. 

 Nature, in her production of her crops of vegetation free from the interference 

 of man, whether these crops are the herbage of prairies or giant forests, ever 

 preserves upon the surface of her soil a covering of decomposing vegetation, 

 conserving moisture and physical conditions and supplying organic plant food — 

 ideal conditions for plant growth. 



For many years the farming systems and practices of the South have had a 

 tendency to exhaust rather than restore fertility. The South is now in a 

 transitory historical period. The virgin soil, originally prodigal in its yield, 

 has been robbed of fertility representing the accumulations of thousands of 

 years, and the high tariff and exhausting rule of King Cotton find us to-day 

 viewing our hillsides corrugated with gullies and spending millions of dollars 

 for fertilizers that we may temporarily stimulate our abused and wasted soils. 

 In the States west of us are to be found, thousands of North Carolinians who, 

 having worn their once fertile fields into gullies, went west to rob other soils, 

 and further west to rob still other soils. 



I believe the old South is now going through a period of reconstruction — an 

 adjustment to conditions and to the demands of the times. This reconstruction 

 may now be slow, but its velocity will be accelerated as it progresses towards 

 its culmination; and the three forces, stronger than any others, that will 

 operate in this progress are live stock, manufacturing and commerce. I do not 

 eliminate cotton. Cotton, like the poor, will be with us always. 



In 1907 North Carolina produced 268,004 tons of cotton seed. The present 

 relative commercial valuation of nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid gives 

 this quantity of seed a market value for fertilizing purposes of $3,553,000. 

 Had the farmers of North Carolina bought the amounts of nitrogen, potash 

 and phosphoric acid contained in the cotton seed produced in North Carolina in 

 1907 they would have paid $3,553,000. The market value of these 26S,004 tons 

 of seed was $5,587,893 (according to the United States Census), or this amount 

 would have been paid the farmers had all the seed been sold. Had the 268,004 

 tons been fed to stock, they would have been worth to the farmers $6,000,000, 

 and, having secured the $6,000,000 of value as a feed, there would have re- 

 mained for the soil. 85 per cent of the fertilizing ingredients of the cotton seed 

 in the resulting excrement, and this excrement would have contained in a most 

 desirable and available form the nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. Thus 

 the combined feeding and fertilizing value of the 1907 crop of cotton seed would 

 have amounted to $9,020,000 to the farmers of North Carolina. The cotton 

 crop of the South in 1897 was 11,200.000 bales and 5,600.000 tons of seed, hav- 

 ing a combined feeding and fertilizing value of $144,424,000. At $5 per ton the 

 seed would have brought $2S,000,000. The farmers of Mississippi lost $16,- 

 632,000 on this one crop, and the farmers of the entire South lost $116,424,000. 

 Why this loss? Because the farmers of Mississippi did not feed their cotton 

 seed to live stock; because the farmers of the South do not keep live stock; 

 because the farmers of the South do not know the value of the South's products 

 or of the South's by-products ; because the farmers of the South have for the 

 past century pursued a policy of soil exhaustion rather than a system of soil 

 improvement. 



The Mississippi station fed cotton seed to cattle through the winter. The 

 feed used contained nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash worth $206.20. The 

 fertilizing value of the excrement from these cattle, considered only from a 

 chemical standpoint, was $175.27. The cattle all increased in weight and were 

 in much better condition in the spring than at the beginning of the winter. 



The Maine Experiment Station found that the manure from cattle fed one 

 ton of hay was worth $4.3S ; from one ton of wheat bran, $9.60 ; and from one 

 ton of cotton-seed meal it was worth $23.66. 



