COTTOX CULTURE. Ill 



cotton. Throw a shovelful of strong stable manure into 

 a shallow pit and cover it with an inch of earth, and you 

 have a bed on which Indian corn will be almost certain to 

 sprout, and where, in a favorable season, it will grow vig- 

 orously. 



If a dozen or more cotton seeds were dropped on a pre- 

 cisely similar bed, the probabilities are that not a single 

 one would ever germinate or produce a healthy plant. 

 They would all rot. The reason of this was very carefully 

 investigated some years since by Dr. Cloud, a cotton 

 planter in Alabama, one of the most intelligent, as well as 

 industrious, agriculturists that ever gave thorough and pa- 

 tient investigation to all the details and reasons of success- 

 ful cotton growing. 



Dr. Cloud at first manured generously in the hill, allow- 

 ing half a gallon of compost to each plant. The cotton 

 grew finely after it came up, but he could get no stand by 

 this method. He found, after experimenting and careful 

 investigation, that the unnatural warmth and dryness pro- 

 duced by a mass of strong manure, is fatal to the germi- 

 nation of cotton seed. " The cotton seed," says he, " in the 

 process of germination, attracts from the surrounding soil 

 and from the atmosphere an unusual amount of water as 

 compared with other seed undergoing this process. Any 

 artificial condition of the soil which concentrates immedi- 

 ately about the cotton seed at this time an undue quantity 

 of alkaline, gaseous matter, causes the fluid contained in 

 the tender, reticulated or mesh-like, incipient, vegetable 

 fibre, to undergo a species of fermentation which, of 

 course, destroys the vitality of the young plant. Cotton 

 is subject to this influence where a quantity of good ma- 

 nure, either compost, guano, or chemical fertilizers have 

 been used in the hill. 



" The tap-root of the cotton plant does not make its 

 way into the soil a perfectly organized root ; the radix or 

 tap, leaving the seed at the small end, plunges directly 



