198 ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE 



some more seed should be scattered on the bare places. 

 Sometimes it is well to go over the pasture in the spring 

 with a cutaway harrow or disk. On most farms a top- 

 dressing of manure or fertilizer will be needed every three 

 to five years. Coarse, strawy manure, or any kind of rub- 

 bish that is undesirable for the regular fields may be 

 scattered on the bare spots in the pasture. 



COTTON 



By CHARLES H. ALVORD 

 Professor of Agriculture, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas 



187. Importance of Cotton. Cotton is the most im- 

 portant fiber crop grown. It is valuable not only for the 

 fiber or lint which it produces, but for each pound of 

 lint there is also produced an average of two pounds of 

 seed, which is valuable for manufacturing purposes and 

 also as a food for live stock. Thread manufactured from 

 cotton lint is used in manufacturing all kinds of cloth, 

 from the coarsest ducking, used in making tents and 

 sail-cloth, to the finest quality of "lawn." Its use is in- 

 dispensable to the comfort of the human race, and there 

 is no similar material produced in sufficient quantity to 

 substitute for any very great percentage of it. If the 

 farmers of America should cease growing cotton, there 

 would be no other available material with which to clothe 

 the people of this country. Because of its great import- 

 ance to the industrial welfare of the people, this plant is 

 familiarly called "King Cotton." The total farm value of 

 the cotton lint and seed produced in the United States in 

 1907 was estimated at $675,000,000, and of this amount 

 $482,000,000 worth of cotton and cotton-seed products 



