SPECIAL CROPS. 213 



three parts or tracts, one third cotton, one third grains and roots, 

 and one third fallow, assigning to each farm laborer an equal 

 amount of cotton and corn land.* 



"Calculate to have on the farm stock enough to consume all 

 the food that grows on it; mules, horses, cows, sheep, poultry; 

 and lay it down as a first principle that no manure is to be wasted. 

 Provide stock pens, hollowed towards the centre, and also sheds 

 for the stock. Let every animal on the place be confined at 

 nisht in these enclosures, with an abundance of litter ; leaves 

 and pine straw are better even, than wheat or oat straw. 



"Cotton requires potash and lime, wood ashes, plaster, 

 slaked lime, or bones, will easily supply this demand. The ne- 

 cessity for phosporic acid is imperative, in order to produce a 

 healthy plant, and in all soils that are not alluvial, that is, where 

 there is not a great abundance of fine vegeiablc mould, the de- 

 mand for phosphorus is probably the reason why diseases of 

 various sorts, such as the rust and the rot, attack the plant. In 

 addition to lime and ashes some fertilizers containing the phos- 

 phates must be used. Compost^ or barnyard manure and bone 

 manure, weeds, muck, and peat abounding in vegetable matter, 

 will supply them. (See Chapter IQ.) 



" Moisture is needed to rot any litter you may use. Scrape 

 your yard on wet days, piling the compost under the sheds; 

 sprinkle over the compost a little lime, ashes, poultry manure, 

 etc. Guano and crushed bones are the most valuable of the 

 condensed fertilizers. Obtain a few pounds of sulphuric acid, 

 and after it has absorbed all the bones, sprinkle it on the com- 

 post heap." 



Cotton seed is one of the best fertilizers of cotton, but it 



* We recommend, instead of the fallow, some green crop, not only to 



shnde the soil from the hot summer sun, but to help in enriching it. 



I'low under H^htly while still green. 

 14 



