86 
CULTIVATION OF COTTOH, 
Hill-sides or undulating ground must be carefully 
circled, to prevent washing. This process consists in 
ploughing round the hills and undulations in such a man- 
ner as to have your beds nearly horizontal — say a fell of 
one inch to fifteen feet. Your cotton beds then are so 
many levees, which confine the water to the middles, from 
which it is gradually conveyed by means of the fall to the 
terminus of the rows, excepting that which is taken up by 
absorption or which is evaporated. We are now ready to 
consider the next step in this complicated work. 
SECTION IV. 
PLANTING, TIME WHEN — SELECTING SEED — QtTANTITT TO THE ACRK — 
PLANTING BY HAND BY THE PLANTER — THE COMING UP — ^A GOOD 
STAND. 
The time for planting varies with the latitude. In tbe 
southern part of the Gulf States corn is planted in February 
and March, and cotton about the first of April ; but in the 
region lying north of the thirty-third parallel, corn is 
planted in the latter part of March, and cotton from the 
middle to the latter part of April. 
Selecting Seed. — It is highly important to select good 
seed. Sound seeds have a greenish-black color, are plump, 
ellipsoid in shape, about half an inch in their larger diam- 
eter, and about a quarter of an inch in their smaller. When 
cracked by the teeth, they pop, and the internal substance 
is white and slightly creamy in color, yielding upon 
pressure more or less oil. If they do not present these 
tests upon examination, they are worthless for planting. 
You may give them to the hogs. 
Every thing being now ready, we proceed to deposit 
