CHAPTER XIII. 
SOILS AND HOW TO HANDLE THEM 
There is no soil typical of the Cotton Belt. Cot- 
ton is grown alike on light sandy soils, on loams, on 
heavy clay soils, and on strong bottom lands, 
though naturally not with equal success on all of 
these varieties of soil. 
In a general way we may group the cotton lands 
into two great divisions — the uplands and the 
bottom lands. The former may be sub-divided 
into light sandy soils, and red and gray clay soils; 
while the latter embrace river-bottoms, basins and 
banks of small streams, the prairies and cane- 
brakes, and the valleys of the Mississippi and its 
branches. 
These soils vary greatly in origin, in composition, 
in productive power. Like other lands, they are 
subject to change; and respond to good treatment 
or suffer from inattention and neglect. 
In all parts of the South one sees cotton soils 
once abounding in fertility, but now so exhausted 
that they grow crops hardly worth the cost of 
seed, fertilizers and tillage. On the other hand, 
other cotton soils which inherited poverty through 
generations of thriftless ownership, are now noted 
for their high productive power. 
Every soil helps its owner in proportion to the 
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