112 COTTON CULTURE. 



downward, and commences pouring out a semi-fluid sub- 

 stance which passes downward, partly by the force of 

 gravity. 



u This substance is remarkably delicate and fragile, easily 

 broken up and disturbed by any foreign or unkindly pres- 

 ence. It is the mould in which the tap-root is formed. 

 Thus it is easy to understand that an unnatural alkaliza- 

 tion, or the warmth and ferment produced by fresh and 

 strong manure in the close vicinity of a vegetable process 

 so delicate, should affect and generally destroy its vitality." 



After making this discovery, Dr. Cloud, by no means 

 ceased the use of compost manures on his cotton. He 

 spread it on broadcast and plowed it in. 



He communicated the results of his various experiments 

 and discoveries to the Albany Cultivator, and the follow- 

 ing condensed instructions on scientific cotton culture may 

 be taken as a summary of Dr. Cloud's method, with vari- 

 ous additions and suggestions derived from the experience 

 of the author of this Treatise. 



"High farming," when cotton is the chief crop, does not 

 consist in drawing large crops from virgin or from alluvial 

 mould, returning nothing and exhausting any soil that is 

 not, like the alluvions of the Mississippi or the Nile, 

 strictly inexhaustible. The truly successful cotton planter 

 is not the man who manages, year by year, to take a 

 thousand bales from a thousand acres of Mississippi bot- 

 tom or the black cane lands of middle Alabama. The 

 really admirable manager is one who takes average land, 

 the natural growth of which is pine or forky-leaf black 

 oak, or small white oak, keeps it in as good condition as 

 he found it, or even better, raises his own meats, vegeta- 

 bles and wool, and one year with another takes as much 

 cotton from an acre as his neighbors, working in the old 

 way, take from three ! 



By what system of agriculture, now, can these results 

 be obtained ? 



