122 COTTON CULTURE. 



In general, it may be said, that cotton seed, like corn, po- 

 tatoes, or wheat, is improved by cultivating the plant in 

 the best manner, under the most favorable circumstances, 

 and then selecting from each stalk those bolls which are 

 the largest, the finest, and the most perfectly matured. 

 The seeds from these bolls are, after ginning, to be again 

 picked over, all that are blasted or imperfectly shaped, 

 rejected, and the remainder carefully tended, so as not to 

 become fermented, or in any manner damaged before 

 planting time of the following year. 



Probably as much depends upon locality as upon any 

 other circumstance with respect to the improvement of 

 cotton seed. Choice varieties never come from the rank, 

 moist lands of the Mississippi Valley, near Natchez; 

 neither does the neighborhood of Memphis afford superior 

 seed. The first improvements in cotton seed in this coun- 

 try were made, as above stated, by painstaking with the 

 original Mexican seed, on the part of a few planters living 

 on the Mississippi River, not far below Vicksburg. The 

 immediate vicinity of Yicksburg has also been remarkable 

 for yielding superior varieties. -Colonel Vick, of that city, 

 a descendant of the man from whom the place is named, 

 has been the most persevering and the most successful of 

 all the Mississippi planters in the art of perfecting cotton. 



Another very successful and somewhat more noted agri- 

 culturist, remarkable for the great variety as well as the 

 excellence of his seed, is Mr. M. W. Phillips, of Edwards, 

 Mississippi, a small town in Hinds County, a few miles 

 north of the capital of the State. In 1848, Mr. Phillips 

 wrote : " The seed most relied on in Mississippi and Lou- 

 isiana is Mexican seed, known in Carolina and Georgia 

 as 'Petit -Gulf seed, because there first planted and im- 

 proved, on the hills around Rodney, Mississippi, where 

 the improvement began ; but there is just as good seed, 

 at present, elsewhere, as in that vicinity. We plant 

 'Sugar-loaf,' or 'Prolific,' ' Lewis' Prolific,' 'Yicks' Hun- 



