TILLAGE FOR COTTON 



109 



use of an ordinary type of air blast fanning mill in which 

 the flue is lengthened to four and one-half feet in order 

 that the seed may be exposed more fully to the action of 

 the air. (For the details of this method the reader is 

 referred to Farmers' Bulletin 285 of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture.) It was found that the heavy 

 seed germinated better than the light ones and also gave 

 a higher yield of seed cotton as shown by the following 

 data taken from a report of these investigations : 



TABLE 7. SHOWING RELATIVE VALUE OF LIGHT AND HEAVY COTTON 



SEED 



125. Quantity of seed. It is customary to plant 

 12 to 15 times the quantity of seed necessary to give the 

 desired number of plants to the acre. A bushel of cotton 

 seed contains between 120,000 and 150,000 seed. It is 

 seldom that less than a bushel and often as much as a 

 bushel and a half of seed is planted per acre. Planting 

 in rows four feet apart and one foot in the drill requires, 

 with a perfect stand, only 10,890 plants to the acre. A 

 spacing of 18 inches in the drill requires 7,260, and 24- 

 inch spacing requires 5,445 plants to the acre. 



With a good quality of seed and a planter that places 

 the seed in a narrow drill, the quantity of seed required 



