204 Practical Farming 



part of the work of the improving farmer in the cotton 

 belt. 



Another great lack is the almost entire neglect of live- 

 stock husbandry. The entire devotion to cotton, and 

 the lack of forage crops, made it impracticable to feed 

 stock to any extent, and the first care of the improving 

 farmer should be to cure this defect in the farming of 

 the cotton belt. Live-stock husbandry necessarily in- 

 volves the cultivation of forage crops, and the forage crop 

 best suited to the feeding of stock is the crop also best 

 suited to the improvement of the soil, the cow pea. There- 

 fore, any system of farming in the cotton belt that ignores 

 the growing of forage crops and the feeding of live stock 

 is a vicious and unprofitable system. 



The devotion to the single crop of cotton has developed 

 the credit system to an extent unknown in the North. 

 The farmer depends on the cotton for everything else, 

 for food for his stock and his family, and even for the mules 

 that cultivate the crop, and getting all these on credit, de- 

 pending on the coming crop, he pays exorbitant prices 

 for all that he gets, and this vicious system of credit still 

 further increases the cost of the crop that is already costly 

 because of the laborious methods of cultivation. 



The system of rotation that should be used on a cotton 

 farm will depend to some extent on the section in which 

 the grower Hves. A rotation that is best suited to the 

 needs of the crop on the level sandy soils of the coastal 

 plain, and the methods of fertilization there, will differ 

 to some extent from those best suited to the rolhng up- 

 lands of the Piedmont country, the red clay soils of the 

 South. 



