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this period everything possible is done to present loss of water from 

 the soil ; grass and weeds are sernpulously excluded, and the surface 

 of the soil is fretpiently stirred with the hoe or otherwise to conserve 

 the moisture and increase the temperature of the soil. 



Now, if these conditions of high temperature and large propor- 

 tions of moisture in the soil continue, the plant will keep on grow- 

 ing and developing stalk, will become perennial, and will produce 

 only the coarser grades and smaller yield of cotton found in many 

 tropical countries. But the meteorological conditions change and the 

 I'lant goes through a second period of development. In the latter 

 part of the season in Sonth Carolina the temperature rapidly falls, 

 the rainfall diminishes, the plant is changed from a pei-ennial to an 

 annual, the yield of cotton is increased, and the quality of the lint 

 is improved. The second period is the fruiting jjeriod of the crop, 

 when all the energies of the plant are turned to the ripening of the 

 fruit. During this period the physical properties and conditions of 

 the soil have an important effect upon the crop production. It then 

 becomes important to ripen the crop and to produce the fruit instead 

 of the stalk and foliage; in other words, cotton instead of Aveed. 

 Every means is taken to dry out the soil, cultivation ceases, and the 

 soil is allowed to become hard and compact, to favor the evaporation 

 of the moisture. Grass and weeds are no longer feared, and rye and 

 l)arley are frequently soA\n during the last part of the season, being 

 supposed by many to be of value for drying out the soil. In the 

 stiff soils or in the bottomdands there is often an excess of moisture, 

 and the crop matures late and often fails to open before frost. 



On the islands and in the country immediately adjoining the coast 

 the fine grades of sea-island cotton are ])roduced. In the lower pine 

 belt, which is farther l)ack from the coast, and on the ridge lands, the 

 cotton is coarser. It is urged that differences in moisture and tem- 

 ]>erature account for these differences in the crop; that the liner 

 grades of cotton are produced only Avhere the physical conditions of 

 atmosphere and especially of soils are fitted for the development of 

 the weed in the early i)art of the season and of the fruit in the latter 

 part, and that in some cases physical conditions of the soil have been 

 so improved by tillage as to make a very marked difference in the 

 crop. The author hopes to l)e able to determine the differences in 

 ))hysical characters of some of the pi'incipal soils of the State, with a 

 view to getting light upon the means by which the sj^^stems of tillage 

 and culture may be so regulated as to ada})t tem})erature and moisture 

 of the soil to the successful growth of the finer grades of cotton. 



On the (Jcrvlopmeiit of the eotton rootf^. — The root system of the 

 cotton plant is naturally small and the individual roots are small and 

 delicate. After the first picking of cotton, eight plants which had 

 grown on light, sandy soil having sandy subsoil, w^ere dug up and 

 examined. The tap-roots extended '" straight down below 2 or 8 



