12 SOILS OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 



siana every available acre of the Wabash clay not subject to unusual 

 overflow is utilized for cotton production. Small acreages of corn 

 are sometimes produced upon the type at the various plantations. 

 With possibly one exception there is no other soil in the Southern 

 States so well suited to the production of cotton as the Wabash clay. 

 This one exception is the Trinity clay, which in many characteristics 

 is similar to the Wabash clay. When the surface of the Wabash clay 

 is first cleared from the dense hardwood forest and cotton is planted, 

 the first year's crop produces an abundant growth of the plant and a 

 feeble fruitage of cotton bolls. On account of the moist, shaded con- 

 dition of the land very few of these bolls mature at a sufficiently 

 early date to escape the autumn frosts and only limited amounts of 

 cotton may actually be picked during the first season. With some- 

 thing of a diminution, the same is true of the second season, but 

 usually by the third season of cultivation a fair to heavy cotton crop 

 may be expected, which is maintained, except under accidental cir- 

 cumstances, for many succeeding years. Thus it is usually a matter 

 of some two or three years to subdue and bring the areas of the 

 Wabash clay to their most productive state. 



After the Wabash clay has been properly brought under cultiva- 

 tion through the clearing of the land, the aeration of the surface soil, 

 and the proper tillage of the type, it is capable of maintaining a 

 strong producing capacity for the cotton crop. Yields of less than 

 one-half bale per acre are abnormally low. Yields of three-fourths 

 bale to 1 bale per acre are common, while yields as high as 2 to 2J 

 bales per acre have been repeatedly reported. Moreover, upon many 

 of the fields occupied by the Wabash clay cotton has been raised un- 

 interruptedly for 50 years or more without any serious or even appre- 

 ciable decrease in the crop returns and without any resort to the 

 use of commercial fertilizers. There have been variations, of course, 

 in the yields from year to year due to climatic causes and to the 

 efficiency with which the crop has been worked, but in general, taking 

 the record of the Wabash clay in the Southern States as a cotton pro- 

 ducing soil, it may be said that the type is capable of producing an- 

 nually, after it is first subdued, a crop of one-half bale per acre or 

 more, and that this rate of production will be maintained, so far as 

 any influence of the soil itself is concerned, through long periods of 

 time without recourse to artificial fertilization. 



There is one recent limitation upon the production of cotton on 

 the Wabash clay which is causing some concern to the planters in 

 Louisiana and Mississippi. This is the advent of the boll weevil. 

 Owing to the fact that the cotton grown upon the Wabash clay re- 

 quires a long season to attain maturity, the earlier maturing va- 

 rieties are not so well suited to production upon this type as those 

 of longer growing period. A considerable part of the effectiveness 

 of the contest against the boll weevil upon all upland soils has 



