112 COTTON 



Why is this true ? 



Because it does the following things : 



1. It injures the texture of the soil by making 

 light soils loose and open, and heavy soils dead and 

 lifeless. 



2. It destroys the humus of the soil; and no 

 soil can remain fertile if it contains little or no 

 organic matter. 



3. It influences unfavorably the water content 

 of the soil: light sandy soils with little vegetable 

 matter are loose and open, and soon lose the 

 moisture in them; heavy clay soils robbed of their 

 vegetable matter quickly dry out and bake. 



4. It influences unfavorably the amount of 

 available plant food in the soil. Vegetable matter 

 itself contains plant food and when used up, with 

 no additional amount to replace it, the loss is soon 

 felt. Plant food is lost also by leaching away in 

 loose soils or by becoming insoluble in stiff heavy 

 lands. 



5. It draws too constantly on that special ratio 

 of fertilizing ingredients most needed by the cotton 

 plant. A crop following after one requiring a some- 

 what different proportion of nitrogen, potash and 

 phosphoric acid, does much to restore the proper 

 balance required for the most profitable cotton 

 production. 



Continuous culture of cotton on any land, then, 

 is undesirable. Its harmful influence may be over- 

 come only by a system that involves a change of 

 crops. 



Such a change of crops is suggested by nature 

 herself. Cut a forest growth and a change of trees 

 comes on. Pasture lands give way to many weeds 

 and thistles; bluegrass and Bermuda drive out the 

 clovers and timothy. Crops do better when fur- 



