OTHER FARM CROPS 545 



in the rows will result in a greater early yield than will wide rows 

 with close spacing. (F. B. 217.) 



Bedding up land previous to planting is universally practiced. 

 Where manures are drilled in, this is indispensable. It forms a 

 warm seed bed in the cool weather of early spring and possesses other 

 advantages. The plants are usually left 2 to 3 inches above the mid- 

 dle of the row, which in 4-foot rows gives a slope of an inch to the 

 foot. This causes the plow in cultivating to lean from the plants, 

 to go deepest in the middle of the row, and, as a consequence, to cut 

 fewer roots. 



Four feet is the usually accepted distance between the rows. 

 The distance between the plants seems of little importance within 

 the limits of 8 to 14 inches. Still, as nothing but cotton stalks will 

 make cotton, it is unsafe on average land to risk wider spaps than 

 1 foot. Nothing conclusive has been settled about checked cotton. 

 It may save a hoeing, and as plowing is done at about the same cost 

 the question of saving is not determined. The skillful use of the 

 hoe does the most accurate and thorough work. Good crops are 

 made with the hoe without using the plow at all. It may be said 

 that cotton growing was originally established entirely by hoe cul- 

 ture, even the soil for planting being prepared with the hoe. 



The perfect cotton planter is not yet invented. It should drop 

 five or six seed in a single line at regular intervals, say a foot apart. 

 In very dry seasons a narrow and deep coulter furrow, the dirt clos- 

 ing in behind it, is run immediately in advance of the planter. It 

 freshens up the bed and assists very much the germination of the 

 seed. 



Much is said about deep and shallow culture, and many believe 

 that they can affect the plant beneficially by practicing the one or 

 the other. The only certainty is that all grass and weeds must be 

 vigorously kept down, and that the capillary pores, through which 

 the moisture escapes after rains, must be broken. The first is most 

 thoroughly effected by a broad, sharp sweep, which takes everything 

 it meets, while going shallower than most other plows. Harrows 

 and cultivators are apt to be turned aside by stubborn bunches of 

 grass, which thus escape them. But the sweep does not distribute 

 the loose dirt as generally as a light harrow does and therefore is not 

 as effective in the mulching process. The effect of cutting roots de- 

 pends entirely upon the season that follows the operation. 



General Observations on Cotton Culture. The matter of the 

 first consideration in the culture of cotton, as in that of any other 

 crop, is to prevent the removal of the soil by washing. Everywhere 

 in the hill country neglect in this regard has resulted in the de- 

 nudation of the soil from extensive areas of cultivated fields, render- 

 ing them barren, and devastating other fields lying at a lower level. 

 Nor does the injury stop here. The public roads become convenient 

 channels along which, to their destruction, these muddy floods at 

 last pour into the streams, damming them up, causing freshets, and 

 converting fertile bottoms into miasmatic marshes. The evil is gen- 

 erally recognized, and to some, but to a wholly inadequate extent, 



