532 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



These are the principal climatic conditions favorable to cotton 

 production. They are gathered more from the experience of farm- 

 ers than from the meteorologist, for the reason that the relations of 

 climate to crop production are so involved and complex that it is 

 impossible at present to give any adequate interpretation to the 

 meteorological data and to show their full bearing upon crop pro- 

 duction. (U. S. E. S. B. 33.) 



Soil. The classification of soils into sandy, sandy loam, loam, 

 clay loam, clay, and bottom lands has a very distinctive and im- 

 portant meaning to the farmer, for he recognizes certain properties 

 characteristic of each of these classes of soils and has learned from 

 experience to expect certain results. 



On the light, sandy uplands the yield per acre is almost in- 

 variably small; on stiff clay lands and on bottom lands, especially 

 in wet seasons, the plants are inclined to make an excessive growtn 

 of the leafy parts and to put on little fruit in proportion to the size 

 of the plants and the crops to be late in maturing. It is also a rec- 

 ognized fact and a matter of wide experience that plants growing on 

 some of these typical soils are much more subject to diseases and to 

 insect ravages under unfavorable climatic conditions than on other 

 soils. The safest soil for cotton is found to be a medium loam, al- 

 though, as stated elsewhere, in favorable seasons and under favorable 

 conditions very large yields are obtained from the heavier clay soils 

 and on bottom lands. 



The texture of the soils, therefore, or the relative amount of 

 sand and clay, has an important bearing on crop production, as 

 has been shown in the experience of farmers throughout the cotton 

 belt. It remains to be seen what these differences are which are 

 dependent upon the relative amount of sand and clay, which the 

 farmer can recognize at a glance, as he can not recognize differences 

 in the chemical composition of the soil. 



The first thing which is very apparent in the consideration of 

 this subject is that the character of the season, and especially of the 

 amount and distribution of the rainfall, has a very marked and im- 

 portant influence upon the yield of cotton on all of these different 

 types of soil. It is no unusual thing for a cotton crop on a heavy 

 clay or rich bottom land to be so badly diseased or to be so injured 

 by insect ravages as to cause an entire failure of the crop, or to be so 

 delayed in maturing, by reason of unfavorable climatic conditions 

 and rank vegetative growth, that the crop does not mature before 

 frost. In more favorable seasons the yield from these same lands 

 may be enormous. Every farmer also recognizes when he puts in 

 his crop the great uncertainty as to the yield, and it is no uncom- 

 mon thing for the yield of cotton for an entire State to be double 

 one year what it was the previous year. It is likewise a matter of 

 very common experience that the cotton in one field or tract of land 

 will be much more affected by unfavorable climatic conditions than 

 the crop in an adjacent field of perhaps a different character of soil. 



Here is an indication of the great influence the conditions of 

 rainfall and moisture have upon the cotton crop, and indications 



