110 
COTTON 
owner's ability to help it. High pedigree, if one 
may use this term in this connection, counts for 
little, if a poor farmer owns the land. Just as the 
canvas reveals the training and the power of the 
artist, so the cotton soil testifies as to the intelligence 
and skill of the owner. 
THE SUPREME TEST OF THE PLANTER 
Power to make the soil produce remunerative 
crops is the supreme test of cotton farming. With- 
out this power, good prices for the staple, an ideal 
climate or situation, a propitious season, are of as 
little agricultural value as "sounding brass or 
tinkling cymbals." 
What then is needed ? 
This is needed: Knowledge of the soil and its 
management. The cotton farmer must so know 
his soil and its proper management that he can 
make it yield better crops ; that he can permanently 
improve it for the generations that are to come after 
him; that he can make not two, but five pounds of 
lint or seed grow where one grew before. These 
happy ends can be achieved only by the most in- 
telligent cultivation, and by the application of every 
principle of improvement revealed by modern 
science. 
HELPING NATURE 
The soil we know was once rock. Through 
countless years this primitive rock has been dis- 
integrating and making soil. The great forces of 
nature through ages and ages of recurring summer 
and winter have been at work on it. And soil build- 
ing never stops. Our cotton soils are being made 
to-day. But you must help nature in her effort to 
make your own soil more productive. You must 
i 
