COTTON 
111 
neither check nor discourage her. She wants your 
helping hand. If the soil has been robbed of its 
humus, you must, return this important element; 
you must add chemical manures when needed; you 
must plow deeply and effectively that a good seed 
bed be provided for the tender plants; legumes 
must be grown that their strong, deep-growing roots 
may add nitrogen and also penetrate and loosen the 
sub-soil, and bring to the upper layers the rich 
plant food of the fertile mines beneath. 
GOOD TILLAGE NEEDED 
Our Southern soils possess great possibilities for 
improvement. They are not exhausted and dead 
as generally supposed. Good tillage will help 
many of them as it helps soils devoted to other crops. 
The plow will do much to restore virgin fertility. 
It will assist nature in making plant food available 
for the tiny fibrous roots. The plow will let air and 
moisture into the soil that they may do their share 
in rendering hitherto locked-up plant food avail- 
able for the plant. 
Good tillage means more than turning a three or 
four inch furrow, as is the usual practice through 
most of the Cotton Belt. It means the gradual 
deepening of the root bed until ten or a dozen 
inches are turned to the air for purification and 
rejuvenation. 
CROP ROTATION NEEDED FOR COTTON LANDS 
Not only do our cotton lands need more thorough 
tillage, but through the greater part of the Cotton 
Belt the one-crop system is practiced. From its 
very nature it is a ruinous system, leading inevitably 
to the deterioration of the land. 
