100 COTTON CULTURE. 



This account of the disease by an Alabama planter was 

 given with a view of eliciting information on the subject. 

 No careful examination of this affection has ever been 

 made, or at least given to the world, and all that can be 

 said by way of suggesting a cure is, that proper cultiva- 

 tion, and an application of just those fertilizers which 

 cotton demands, will give partial, if not entire relief. 



Sometimes in July and August, when the cotton should 

 be maturing rapidly, there will appear a change in the 

 color of some parts of the field. Instead of a deep, 

 healthy green, the plants take on a dull slate or leaden 

 color ; the strength of the soil seems to expend itself on 

 the woody fibre, not in maturing the bolls. 



The planter calls this " blue cotton." At other times, 

 depending perhaps on a very wet season, the plant, after 

 growing several feet, and bearing well, sheds all its fruit 

 and becomes blue. 



As the remedies for all these diseases of the cotton 

 plant may be summed up in one phrase, the improved and 

 scientific culture of cotton, that wide field of inquiry and 

 suggestion, must be remitted to the succeeding chapter. 



CHAPTER III. 



IMPROVED AND SCIENTIFIC CULTURE OF COTTON. 



Though cotton is the great American staple of export, 

 and has been proclaimed a King in the commercial world, 

 no leading crop of the country has been so little studied 

 by scientific men, and none has been cultivated with so lit- 

 tle reference to fundamental principles of agricultural 

 chemistry. Three reasons may be assigned for this some- 

 what surprising fact, 



