CHAPTER II. 



DR. N. B. CLOUD'S IMPROVED SYSTEM OF COTTON 

 CULTURE. 



SECTION I. DR. CLOUD'S PLAN OF MANURING, PLANTING 

 AND TENDING A COTTON CROP. 



Extract from an article published in the Albany Cultivator. 



THIS improvement when it shall have attained its highest 

 state of perfection, contemplates the " system of rotation" in 

 planting, under which the land designed for cotton lies the 

 previous year in the state of fallow, which is found by expe- 

 rience most favorable to the growth and fruitfulness of the 

 plant. I commence the preparatory operations for planting 

 about the 1st of March, by spreading upon the land, broadcast, 

 two to three hundred bushels of manure per acre light stock 

 yard and stable compost. I then run off the land in rows of 

 three feet with a scooter-plough, opening a good furrow some 

 three to four inches deep ; this done, I take a large-sized 

 shovel-plough and cross the scooter-furrows by rows, running 

 at right angles of five feet wide. I am now prepared to com- 

 mence manuring in the hill, having first ascertained that I 

 have 2940 hills on each acre, which will require, by giving 

 each hill a half gallon of manure same kind of compost 184 

 bushels nearly, which I haul on the land in a cart, first gradu- 

 ated to a certain number of bushels, and with spades likewise 



