82 COTTON CULTURE. 



tion. The average throughout the State is about two 

 hundred pounds per acre, but there is very little to attract 

 or retain planting enterprise on these lands, when such re- 

 gions as are above described lie open and inviting in the 

 Southwest. 



Passing west of the mountains, one descends the west- 

 ern slope of the Cumberland range, and approaches to 

 within thirty miles of Nashville before a cotton soil is 

 reached. Near the Alabama line, the climate and soil are 

 both quite favorable, and west of the Tennessee, near 

 Memphis, and around Jackson and Paris, it is the staple 

 production. The Tennessee lands that yield over half a 

 bale per acre are not extensive. In Middle Tennessee one 

 hundred and fifty pounds per acre is fair cropping ; but the 

 bottoms of the Mississippi and the Tennessee have not 

 been found sufficiently fertile to bring the general average 

 of the State up to three hundred pounds, less than half 

 of the average Texas crop. 



COTTOX ISTOETH OF 38. 



The successful cultivation of cotton depends on the 

 length of the season more than any one thing. It requires 

 four months from planting to the opening of the ground 

 bolls. Then, in order to raise anything like a full crop, 

 two and a half or three months more are needed for pick- 

 ing it out. In the best part of the cotton belt the chief 

 dates in the calendar are as follows : 



Planting, about the first of April. 



First bloom, early in June. 



First open boll, early in August. 



Picking commenced, middle of August. 



First killing frost, first to middle of November. 



Crop gathered, middle. of December. 



The effects of shortening the season, as thus allotted, 

 are, in the first place, to give less time for maturing cotton 

 before frost, and to make the cotton which is forced open 



