46 COTTON 
CORN SEVEN TIMES, WHEAT TWICE, AS EXHAUSTIVE 
AS COTTON 
But it is not alone in our reckless disregard of 
the ancient laws of breeding that we have succeeded 
in bringing down the yield of cotton far below what 
it should be; like a Prodigal Son, wasting his sub- 
stance in riotous living, we have also been guilty of 
inexcusable folly in dealing with Nature’s greatest 
gift to the farmer—the soil itself. Land-starved 
for ages, our forefathers came from Europe to our 
Southern States and reveled in mad intoxication in 
the seemingly unlimited areas of virgin soils they 
found. Before the Civil War it was customary to 
clear up land, grow a few crops of cotton on it, 
then “turn it out” to broomsage and gullies, and 
clear up more new lands for the cotton crop. The 
old fields of the South probably cover an area as 
large as five of the New England States. So it was 
not mere poetic sentiment, but the deep recognition 
of a damning economic sin that moved Sidney 
Lanier to say: 
‘“Upon that generous rounding side 
With gullies scarified 
When keen Neglect his lash hath plied 
Yon old deserted Georgian hill 
Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest 
And seamy breast, 
By restless-hearted children left to lie 
Untended there beneath the heedless sky, 
As barbarous folk expose their old to die.’ 
’ 
Really, as we shall see further on in this book, 
there is less reason for the abandoned field in cotton 
growing than in any other kind of farming. An 
average crop of wheat requires twice as much plant 
food as an average crop of cotton, and an average 
crop of corn nearly seven times as much. 
