88 THE UPPER PINE BELT. 



Grecii manuring, especiall}^ with the cow-pea, is regarded favorably, al- 

 though it is not practiced as a system. Sown broadcast^, manured with the 

 " Ash element " (a cheap fertilizer composed chiefly of lime and potash) 

 and turned under after the Amines are wilted by frost, remarkable results 

 have been attained. Col. Thomas Taylor says that lands subject to rust, 

 and never yielding more than seven bushels of wheat, have given twenty- 

 six bushels under this treatment. After the cotton is laid by a furrow is 

 sometimes run in the alley, and cow-peas drilled in, forming the basis on 

 which the next year's cotton bed is to be constructed. Peas grown among 

 corn are esteemed highly for the beneficial influence they exert on the 

 soil, as Avell as for the crop they yield. 



The limited amount of stable and lot manure, furnished chiefly by the 

 work stock, other cattle being rarely fed or penned systematically, is much 

 valued. Cotton seed is wholly used for manure, and its use has much in- 

 creased, either alone, or composted with woods mould and litter, or the 

 superphosphates. These means of maintaining the fertility of the land 

 are largely supplemented by the use of guajios and other fertilizers. In 

 Marlboro county the general rule is, to return to the land all the cotton 

 seed produced on it, and in addition one sack of Guanape guano, or 

 half a sack of it, with one hundred pounds of superphosphates, and if 

 rust is apprehended, one hundred pounds of kainit. Lands so treated 

 are counted on with much certainty to give a bale of cotton to the acre 

 one year with another. This may be taken as the best established and 

 most successful practice regarding manures. There are wide variations 

 from it. A very few, but not the least successful farmers, purchase no 

 commercial fertilizers and rely wholly on cotton seed, composts of woods 

 moulds and leaves, and stable manure. The use of fertilizer is very gen- 

 erally deprecated as mithrifty and extravagant, but the facility with 

 which they may be obtained and used, makes their employment the 

 general practice. 



The first step in preparation for planting cotton is to dispose of the old 

 stalks. If small, the}' are not attended to. Ordinarily they are knocked 

 to pieces by hand with a club. Machines have been devised for this pur- 

 pose, but have not proved successful, thus leaving a field open to inventors. 

 When the stalks are very large, say four to five feet high, they have to be 

 pulled up, and sometimes to be burned. Some planters pull up the stalks 

 and lay them in the furrow on which the bed is to be made ; it is objected 

 to this practice that the plow in cultivation strikes the buried stalks and 

 destroys the young cotton. 



The furrow for the bed is either run in the alley between the rows, or 

 the old bed is barred off" and the furrow run through its centre. The 

 first practice alternates the cotton rows every year, the second plants on 



