DISEASES OF THE COTTON PLANT. 241 
THE EFFECTS OP A BAD SUBSOIL. 
When on the plantation of Major Haywood, of Talla- 
hassee, in Florida, in the month of August, several very fine 
and apparently healthy cotton plants, from four to five 
feet in height, covered with forms and bolls, were observed 
to be dying suddenly, in certain spots, the leaves being 
withered, as if the damage had been done within twenty- 
four hours. Such plants eventually died ; and, on taking 
them up, no worm, insect, nor injury, either external Of 
internal, could be discovered ; and the only conclusion that 
could be drawn was, that some of the roots had suddenly 
penetrated into a soil totally unfitted for, and evidently 
deleterious to, the life of a plant. What rendered it the 
more singular was, the fact that other cotton plants were 
growing most luxuriantly within one or two feet of that 
which was stricken. 
THE RUST. 
The cotton plant is also subject to a disease called the 
" rust." The leaves, when first attacked, appear rather yel- 
lower than the rest, with red spots on the surface, and often 
margined with the same red color. These leaves then turn 
yellower and redder every day, until the plant assumes a 
bright-red or almost a carmine appearance, when, finally, 
the whole of the foliage turns more of a brown color, and 
falls to the earth. "WTien the disease attacks the boll, it 
assumes a different appearance, and is termed the " red " 
or " black " rust, as the case may be. The cotton, in such 
bolls as have been attacked by the black rust, and the bolls 
themselves, shrivel up, and turn dark-colored, as if they 
had been severely blighted or mildewed, and are totally 
valueless. 
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