100 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



per cent., Laving the next year's seed to plant oth%r acres, 

 say, at least twenty acres for every original acre. 



The seed mostly relied on in Mississippi and Louisiana, are 

 Mexican seed, known in Carolina and Georgia as Petit Gulf 

 seed, because there planted and improved. In the hills 

 around Rodney, Miss., the improvement began, and there 

 are just as good seed at present elsewhere, as there is now 

 near Rodney. We plant Sugar Loaf, or Prolific, Lewis' 

 Prolific, Vicks' 100-seed, Guatemala, a seed not of Mexican 

 origin, Brown seed, and others. Except the Guatemala, they 

 are all, I believe, mere selections from the Mexican. 



I do not pretend to affirm that any of these seeds will pro- 

 duce, in quality or quantity, so much greater than seed usually 

 cultivated in the interior of Mississippi, in Alabama, Georgia, 

 or Carolina, as to warrant the planter in giving such rates as 

 $3 or $5 per bushel ! The grower of the seed deserves a por- 

 tion of the increased value, but the planter (purchaser), also 

 deserves a fair portion, and the greater. I know from repeat- 

 ed trials, that good seed will produce, say as six to seven, 

 that is, an acre which would produce 600 Ibs., with ordi- 

 nary seed, has produced here 700 Ibs. And I know of 

 planters who will not buy seeds, yet will haul them twenty to 

 thirty miles, if given to them, clearly showing their real 

 opinion of the advantage derivable. I believe the yield is 

 greater over common seed. I sincerely believe I have laid 

 out 75 cents for a bushel of seed, and made more thereby than 

 any other investment ; and I think by buying seed to plant, 

 say one-fifth of one's crop yearly, that any planter will make 

 thereby ; I mean where seeds are used for ten years or so, of 

 any one kind, of the ordinary kinds. A planter who plants 

 100 acres, may buy seed for twenty acres, say ten bushels, at 

 $1 per year, and make a better investment than buying a 

 negro fellow at $500. Some high-strung planters believe it 



