106 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



culture of one crop or another, which the writers wanted to put in in the 

 place of cotton. They had always been giving cotton too large a place, but 

 their only idea of farming seemed to be the "making of a crop" of some 

 kind to sell. Some wanted to go into broom corn, some into sunflowers for 

 the oil, some into hops or some other crop about which they knew nothing, 

 and many of which were entirely unsuited to the Southern climate, as the 

 hop is. We have tried earnestly to impress on the writers that the only hope 

 of the South lies in better farming with the staple crops we have, and an 

 utter abandonment of the cotton cropping idea. "But I cannot afford to put 

 my land in crops that will pay me less money than I can get from the land 

 in cotton," is what we are continually being told by men whose cotton costs 

 them 6 to 8 cents per pound, when by better farming and the growing of 

 forage and feeding of cattle they could grow the cotton for half what it now 

 costs them, and this, too, with a more liberal expenditure for fertilizers than 

 they now use, but used in a different way. 



WHAT IS THE BEST ROTATION FOfi COTTON? 



Bulletin No. 43 of the Georgia Station makes the following statement 

 in regard to the rotation practiced there. "At the beginning of the ex- 

 istence of the Station, nine years ago, a regular system of rotation was in- 

 augurated, and with occasional modification, it has been, continued to the 

 present time. This system is what would be called a three year shift, and is 

 as follows: First. year: Oats, liberally fertilized, followed by cow peas with 

 200 pounds of acid phosphate per acre. The cow peas, as a rule, were made 

 into hay. 



Second year: Cotton, liberally fertilized. 



Third year : Corn. At the beginning liberally fertilized, but later, mod- 

 erately fertilized. Cow peas were sown in the corn, sometimes in hills at 

 second plowing, but generally broadcast at the third plowing. Peas gathered 

 for seed supply. A part of the corn for several years past has been cut down, 

 stalk and all, and put into the silo. After the corn, the land was again sown 

 in oats in October or early November, thus commencing a second round of the 

 three year rotation. The Director does not hesitate to say (and in this 

 opinion he is sustained by the Agriculturist), that the increased productive- 

 ness of the farm is due more to the adoption and maintenance of a regular 

 system of rotation of crops, than to any one policy or practice." The bulletin 

 further states : "On most small farms that are devoted to cotton and corn and 

 minor crops, and where very few animals are kept, there will not be more 

 manure from this source than will be required by the kitchen garden and the 



