42 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



I do not regard some of our large crop-masters as worthy of 

 imitation they make eight, ten, aye, twelve bales per hand, 

 but it is by working negroes, and wasting land. 



Alternation of crops has a powerful influence, and is of great 

 benefit to the planter, if he will plant in four-fold rotation, cot- 

 ton, corn, grain, and rest absolute rest. I do not call it 

 resting land to graze it. It would be as well to cut off the 

 crop, and better, as the ground will not then be injured by 

 trampling in wet weather. 



Sowing peas (two to three pecks per acre) when corn is 

 laid by, will give shade to the land, and a large amount of 

 manure. Peas gather sustenance from the air as well as 

 the land, and thus you return all to the land taken up by the 

 pea, and more too. I am constrained to believe that a dense 

 shade of pea vines will benefit land, even if every stem of the 

 pea could be removed the first killing frost. 



And last, though not least, I regard selecting of seed, duly 

 curing before being bulked, as an important aid to the health 

 and growth and productiveness of the crop. Why should not 

 increase of vitality in cotton seed be beneficial, as well as 

 sound and healthy parents to a sound issue ? I admit I am 

 interested in this being promulgated but I hope not more than 

 what all others should be. I am so well satisfied of the fact, 

 that I have been purchasing seed for fifteen years or more. 

 True, I have, in 1848-9, sold largely but others are bene- 

 fited as much as I have been. Yours, with respect, 



M. W. PHILIPS. 



