EXPERIMENTS WITH SINGLE-STALK COTTON CULTURE. 5 



PLAN OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 



The county or parish agents were requested to make arrangements 

 with the farmers for conducting the experiments on ordinary fields of 

 cotton, planted and cultivated in the usual manner. It was sug- 

 gested that a more accurate comparison of the systems of culture 

 employed would be possible if the methods were compared in alternate 

 rows and in alternate blocks of 4 or 5 rows. To do this it would be nec- 

 essary to thin at the usual time each alternate row or block and leave 

 the others for later thinning. In several instances this plan was fol- 

 lowed, but in some instances comparisons were made only in alternate 

 rows. In one case in Louisiana an entire acre, located in the center 

 of a field of several acres, was grown by the single-stalk method. 



THINNING SINGLE-STALK ROWS. 



Any intelligent grower, after a little careful observation, can tell 

 when to thin; but for the purpose of these experiments it was con- 

 sidered more dependable actually to demonstrate the method than 

 merely to issue written instructions. Accordingly, some one familiar 

 with the new system directed the thinning of the single-stalk rows in 

 most of the experiments. The few farmers whose farms it was im- 

 practicable to visit at this time thinned according to written instruc- 

 tions, and these experiments were, with one or two exceptions, fairly 

 dependable. 



The general advantage obtained in applying single-stalk culture is 

 the suppression of vegetative branches. The distance at which the 

 plants should stand in the row is a secondary consideration and 

 must be regulated to suit local conditions, but as a rule the largest 

 yields have been obtained with the plants much closer together than 

 is now customary. Accordingly, the plants in the single-stalk rows 

 of these experiments were spaced 6 to 10 inches, the standard aimed 

 at being about 8 inches. The plants as thinned by the farmers in the 

 old-method rows were variously spaced, according to usual practice, 

 18 to 36 inches. 



RECORDING THE YIELDS. 



The recording of yields in each case was left with the farmer, who 

 in some instances was assisted by the county agent. However, it 

 was requested that the yield from each row at each picking be re- 

 corded separately, and blanks for this purpose were furnished. Row 

 yields were reported by 17 of the 21 farmers, while only total yields 

 were reported by 4 farmers. The general rule followed was to have 

 the picking done from only one row at a time and have the yield of 

 that row recorded before proceeding to the next. 



