The Cotton Crop 209 



If all the cotton farmers in the sandy soils of the coast 

 section were working their land in this way, and were 

 feeding all the pea hay and corn fodder, crops of two 

 bales of cotton per acre would soon be common. 



In all the red clay uplands of the South, 

 Rotation for wheat should have a place in the cotton ro- 

 Piedmont tation, since in these lands, when well 



Uplands improved, as large wheat crops can be 



produced as in any part of the country. 

 Then, too, in these lands the rotation should be somewhat 

 longer than in the level lands of the coast plain, so that 

 clean hoed crops do not so often come on the hill lands 

 that are inclined to wash. 



The hill lands of the South, as well as the coast lands, 

 should always have a winter-growing crop on them, and 

 should never be left bare in winter, since there is always 

 some formation of soluble nitrates, which, in the ab- 

 sence of a growing crop will be washed out by the winter 

 rains and lost. With a green winter cover crop, even if it 

 is only rye, these nitrates will be taken up and can be 

 restored to the soil by plowing under the cover crop in 

 preparation for a spring planted crop, thus saving possible 

 loss and adding humus-making material to the soil. 



In fact, in any rotation that may be devised, this res- 

 toration of the humus-making material should never be 

 lost sight of, for, as we have heretofore seen, it is the 

 great lack of the Southern upland soils. What the red 

 clay hills need also is deep plowing and subsoiling to pre- 

 vent the tendency to wash into gullies by furnishing a 

 deeper bed of loose soil to retain the water. Deep break- 

 ing, and level and shallow cultivation of the hoed crops 



