FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN THE SOUTH 



493 



TABLE 103. GEORGIA FERTILIZER EXPERIMENTS WITH COTTON 

 (Division B, Sections 4 and 5, East, 1906) 



1 At 10 cents a pound for lint and 70 cents a hundred for seed. 



use of fertilizers is found in the cotton crop, which it should be 

 remembered is the most valuable per acre of all the general field 

 crops grown in the United States (potatoes and tobacco being 

 considered as truck or garden crops) . 



As an average seed cotton is about one third lint and two thirds 

 seed, and a hundred-bushel crop of corn is more difficult to produce 

 than 3000 pounds per acre of seed cotton, which would yield 1000 

 pounds (or 2 bales) of cotton lint. At ten cents a pound for cotton 

 lint and 70 cents per 100 pounds for cotton seed, such a crop would 

 be worth $114 an acre, or about three times as much as 100 bushels . 

 of corn at the ten-year average price in the corn belt. Georgia 

 produces less than 200 pounds of cotton lint per acre, on about 4^- 

 million acres, the annual acreage being second only to that of Texas. 



Judging from the composition of the residual soils of Maryland, 

 Tennessee, and Georgia, and from the statement by Director Red- 

 ding concerning the value of farm manure reenforced with acid 

 phosphate, it seems evident that large use of ground limestone and 

 legume crops, the latter to be plowed under either directly or in 

 farm manure, and liberal applications of phosphate, constitute 

 the most essential factors for the permanent improvement of such 

 land; although, under the present condition of most of the upland 

 soils of Georgia and other Southern states, profitable use can no 

 doubt be made of potassium, at least until the supply of active 

 organic matter is greatly increased, and especially for the cotton 

 crop, which pays such large returns for a comparatively small 

 increase in yield per acre. 



