PREPARATION OF LAND. 33 



harrow along the ridge, so as to break clods, and rake off 

 pieces of stalk and to leave the ridge fresh ; if once running 

 of the harrow will not do, I run it twice. 



The opener then follows and opens out a furrow, say one 

 half inch is deep enough, and narrow ; if this furrow could 

 be as straight as a bee line, and half an inch wide I would 

 esteem it better, if upon level land. The seed is scattered 

 thinly and regularly, then covered with a board or block ; I 

 would prefer a roller. As to distance, this depends upon 

 quality, age, and locality of land. Rich and fresh land requir- 

 ing greater distance, and I am inclined to think that the same 

 quality of land north of say 33 will tend more to longer joints, 

 than does cotton about 31 to 33 and particularly western 

 lands ; these lands tending to short joints, and greater yield to 

 height of cotton. I do not plant any land that requires rows 

 to be over five and a-half feet, even to grow fifteen to twenty 

 hundred-weight of cotton per acre, i There is sometimes, I 

 am sure, much loss by too sparse planting. I desire to have 

 the plants meet in the rows by the 1st of August, and should 

 it after this date lap in the row, the crop will not be materially 

 injured. I find the new varieties, as Sugar Loaf and Cluster, 

 to require less distance both ways than does the Mexican. 

 When I planted my crop with Mexican Petit Gulf I gave 

 five to five and a-half feet by two to three feet on my best 

 land. For four years I have grown Sugar Loaf, and plant 

 four and a-half feet by eighteen to twenty -four inches, prefer- 

 ring about eighteen inches. Upon second quality of land I 

 reduce distance to four feet or less, by eighteen inches. Upon 

 this department of planting (the preparation) I use more lime 

 and labor than is usual, being careful to break up deep, throw 

 out into beds all the land, leaving no unploughed ridges ; the 

 ridges I endeavor to pulverize well, and do not run ploughs 

 unless land will pulverize, thinking ploughing may be done 

 2* 



