AROUND THE YEAR WITH COTTON 159 



on top of the bed, the new row being in the same place as 

 the old one. 8 



This practice gives the new cotton plants the left-over 

 benefits of last year's fertilizer. The rows are left about 

 three to four feet apart. The farmer is likely to use a 

 bushel of seed to the acre. On many farms it is customary 

 to drop the seed and fertilizer at the same time, using 

 a combination planter and distributer. The whole opera- 

 tion, with the use of one-horse implements, requires almost 

 a day to the acre. It is the very opposite of time and 

 labor saving. The small size of the eastern farms and the 

 ruggedness of their contour, however, have served to pre- 

 vent the general use of better methods. At the same time 

 the farmer must plow and lay off rows for his corn. 

 These operations easily require more than a day's work 

 per acre. The supplementary crops of cotton and corn 

 thus interfere rather .seriously with each other. 



In the flat alluvial areas and especially in the western 

 prairies, the level lands make possible more efficient culti- 

 vation. Little fertilizer is used and the processes depend 

 less upon man labor and more on machines and mules. 

 The following description is typical of practices in a 

 Texas Black Land county: 



The beds are thrown up with a four-horse "middle-buster," 

 the mouldboard of which resembles the mouldboard of a 

 right-hand and left-hand turnplow fastened together. This is 

 run in the old row and the dirt thrown to the middle on 

 either side, makes beds in the middle between the old rows. 

 When the beds are completed the land is harrowed. . . . 

 The cotton is drilled on top of the bed, one row at a time 



8 Cotton Atlas, p. 13. The crop practices are those found in 

 Anderson County, South Carolina. 



