42 COTTON CULTURE 



or under the manure shed, in order to "fix" the ammonia 

 and prevent its escape in the form of gas. 



PLANTING THE SEED 



Width of Rows and Spacing. It has already been 

 elsewhere suggested that the width of cotton rows should 

 not be greater than three to three and a half feet on soil 

 capable of producing one bale or less per acre. As the 

 soil increases in natural productive capacity, or is im- 

 proved artificially so as to produce a crop of two bales 

 per acre, the rows should be proportionately wider. On 

 the ordinary worn uplands of the South, not capable of 

 a yield exceeding one-half bale per acre, three feet be- 

 tween rows is wide enough. With a possible yield 

 of one to one and a half bales, the width should be three 

 and a half to four feet. On rich low grounds and on the 

 rich black soils of the Gulf States, greater width may be 

 found desirable or necessary. 



Spacing in the Rows. Experiments repeated through 

 a period of five years at the Georgia Experiment Station 

 show that the best results in cotton production are secured 

 by spacing the plants as nearly "on a square" as other 

 considerations will permit. With plants in three-foot 

 rows and two feet apart the yield was always larger than 

 when they were in four-foot rows by one and a half feet 

 in the row ; and the yield of the last was greater than when 

 the rows were five feet and the plants fourteen and four- 

 tenths inches. The lowest yield was where the rows were 



