FIBER CROPS 



355 



less and better seed, sell the surplus seed to the cotton mills and 

 use cotton-seed meal as a fertilizer. 



The seed is planted by means of a one-horse cotton drill, or 

 more rarely by means of the two-horse maize planter adjusted 

 for cotton. (C. A. 305) Experiments are also being conducted 

 by the United States Bureau of Plant Industry and others of 

 rolling the cotton seed in a mixture of gypsum and flour to 

 paste the fuzz to the seed 

 in order that the seed may 

 be planted in hills with 

 an ordinary maize planter. 

 It is considered a good 

 practise, especially on 

 sandy, friable soils, to 

 compact the furrow above 

 the seed by means of a 



heavy roller attached to improved cotton drill with fertilizer attachment 



the drill or otherwise. 



449. Distance. Experiments seem clearly to prove that cot- 

 ton plants should be thinned to one in a place. The width of 

 rows may vary from 2.5 to 5 feet, depending on the variety, the 

 soil and the latitude. While the expense would be less for plant- 

 ing and cultivation with larger widths of rows, making less rows 

 to plant, hoe, and cultivate, yet experiments indicate that the best 

 yields are obtained with rows relatively narrow and the plants 

 wider apart in the row, so as to make them more equidistant. 



The results of the Georgia and the Alabama stations indicate 

 that for land capable of yielding 0.75 to 1.5 bales of cotton 

 per acre the rows should be 3.5 to 4 feet wide and the plants 

 12 to 18 inches apart in the drills, the narrow rows and 

 closer spacing for the less productive soil, more northern sec- 

 tions and smaller growing varieties. For exceptional soils pro- 

 ducing large cotton plants requiring more than ten square feet 



