555 
the soil in which they were severally grown, and, acting upon that hypothesis, he pro- 
ceeds to take from the root of each plant a sample of the soil, and forthwith posts it 
off to the agricultural chemist to be analyzed and reported upon. In due time the 
report comes back that the analysis has detected no essential difference in the respect- 
ive samples.- (Perhaps if the learned professor had been informed of the purpose of 
the required analysis, he might have been able to have detected a difference, which in 
fact had no existence.) Our friend being a sensible man, for the first time recognizes 
the fact that as in the animal so in the vegetable kingdom, there exist different types 
of the same species, and that for the purpose of propagation a judicious selection is as 
essential in the one case as in the other. Acting upon that conviction he promptly 
determines to turn over a new leaf in his farming programme, and instead of obtain- 
ing seed from the general pile, which has been picked without any discrimination, he 
marches to the field at the commencement of the picking season, and having previously 
determined by close observation the type to be preferred, he proceeds to pick only such 
bolls as are fully developed and well matured. To render his work in this new pro- 
gramme perfectly thorough, he uses great discrimination and selects very closely, so 
that at the termination of the picking season he finds that he has gathered only one 
hundred pounds of cotton from a field of perhaps one hundred acres. But he is not 
discouraged by the smallness of his accumulation ; he knows that this hundred pounds 
will yield him two bushels of seed, which will plant a patch of two acres at least; 
and his experience has taught him the extraordinary progressive increase of all seed 
plants. He is therefore satisfied with the result, remembering that it is only the be- 
ginning of a good work. x 
But just here our farmer friend, adverting to the fact that all the phenomena 
occurring in the rearing of animals also occur in the rearing of plants, justly concludes 
that to preserve his seed from degeneration, and to keep it up to its original standard 
of excellence, it will be necessary to give to the parent stock an ample supply of 
nutritious food, so as to keep it in good condition and impart toit that healthful vigor 
so essential to successful propagation. To accomplish that end he resolves to estab- 
lish a permanent ‘‘seed-patch,’ and forthwith commences the collection and applica- 
tion of fertilizers, domestic, (and, if need be, commercial,) until he brings if up to the 
production of two bales of lint to the acre. In this patch, located somewhat remote 
from the balance of the crop if practicable, he deposits his two bushels of selected 
seed, chops it out into bunches of three or four in a place as soon as the plants have 
put forth the third leaf, carefully avoiding the bruising of the plants left; and when 
it has put forth its fourth and fifth leaves, thins it out by hand to a stand of one in 
the hill, taking care to leave those stocks which exhibit the most vigor and greatest 
‘tendency to bulkiness of form. The after cultivation is thorough and judiciously ap- 
plied, the plants advance rapidly to maturity, and about the 1st of July it is topped to 
insure development and maturity to the upper bolls. From these two acres our farmer 
finds himself the possessor of four bales of lint, and at least one hundred and twenty 
bushels of selected seed, to be used in the planting of the ensuing crop. 
But his work does not end with the first year’s selection, for he has discovered the 
presence of intruders in this his agricultural sanctum. The burly but fruitless gentle - 
man and the attitudinizing dandy before referred to have again put in an appearance 
and they must be gotten rid of. He therefore enters upon another selection from his 
“seed-patch,” and repeats it from year to year, until he has effectually fixed the type of 
the original stock, and his heart is gladdened each revolving year by the evidence that 
his labor has not been uselessly expended in the cultivation of barren interlopers, but 
that each plant generously responds to his efforts, as a prolific fruit-bearer, and amply 
repays him for his toil and patient painstaking. The ‘“seed-patch” and “annual selec- 
tion” become permanent institutions in his agricultural programme, to be handed down 
to his posterity as an inheritance more valuable than evanescent gold. This is the 
programme of a plain, practical agriculturalist, who is not afraid of the ridicule of 
being denominated a mere “ theorist,” or ““new-light progressionist,” and it is urgently 
commended to the earnest consideration and adoption of every member of this associ- 
ation. 
Having consumed so much time and space on the subject of cotton, I am admonished 
of the propriety of. being as brief as possible on the other branch of the subject—corn. 
Indeed, it might suffice to say that all the principles announced in regard to the suc- 
cessful growing of cotton hold equally true in regard to the production of this much 
more important staple. I desire to emphasize the words “much more important,” in 
the face of those who hold the doctrine that it is more remunerative to apply our en- 
tire labor to the production of cotton and rely upon the teeming granaries of the West 
for a supply of that indispensable article. A moment’s reflection will show the fallacy 
of that doctrine, the prevalence of which, to only a moderate extent, has already 
largely contributed to the existing depression throughout the entire cotton belt. This 
doctrine is now acted upon to only a limited extent, but should it ever obtain univer- 
sal acceptation the consequence would be the production of a large surplus of cotton 
at the expense of an entire destitution of corn, thus depressing the price of the former 
and correspondingly enhancing the price of the latter. How such a result could bene- 
