NURSE PLANTING SELECT COTTON SEED. 
11 
Table I. — Comparative seed increase of cotton when planted in progeny rows, 
the number of seeds in a hill being varied from one to six. 
Kate of planting. 
Number 
of hills. 
Seed pro- 
duced. 
Rate of planting. 
Number 
of hills. 
Seed pro- 
duced. 
100 
120 
150 
Pounds. 
17 
20 
25 
200 
300 
600 
Pounds. 
33 
5 seeds to hill 
2 seeds to hill 
50 
100 
In carrying the example farther, it is sufficient to compare only the 
1-seed and 2-seed rates. In the one case, 600 cotton seeds might be 
planted four in a hill in the usual manner, making a total of 150 
hills. In the other, 600 cotton seeds, if nurse planted two in a hill, 
would give 300 hills in all. After thinning out the surplus plants in 
each hill, there would remain, therefore, 150 cotton plants in the first 
instance and twice that number, or 300, in the second. The total pro- 
duction of seed from the 150 plants would be 25 pounds, as compared 
with 50 pounds from the 300 plants, a gain of 100 per cent. If nurse 
planting were practiced the second year, the gain would become 400 
per cent. The 25 pounds of seed produced by the progeny row 
planted in the usual way would, for example, plant 1 acre if planted 
with a cotton planter, while the 50 pounds from the nurse-planted 
progeny row would plant 1 acres if delinted, mixed in equal propor- 
tion with beans or peas, and planted with a corn planter. Ity carry- 
ing this procedure through the third year, as shown in Table II, it 
would be possible to plant in the fourth year only 3,010 acres with 
the stock of seed increased in the usual manner, while with the nurse- 
planted stock it would be possible to plant 16 times as much, or 
48,616 acres. 
Table II. — Comparatiec increase of seed when select cotton is planted in the 
usual way and under nurse planting. 
First year (progeny 
row). 
1'lantings at the rate of 25 pounds 
jer acre. 
Method of planting. 
Second year. ] Third year. 
Fourth 
year. 
C C o!hT Num. 
f^ S ber of 
Eif. ***• 
Seed 
pro- 
duced. 
Area 
planted. 
Seed 
pro- 
duced. 
Area 
planted. 
Seed 
pro- 
duced. 
Area 
planted. 
Usual 
4 150 
2 | 300 
Pounds. 
25 
50 
Acres. 
1 
4 
Pounds. 
1,382 
5,528 
Acres. 
55 
440 
Pounds. 
70,010 
J08,0S0 
Acres. 
3 040 
Nurse (half cotton and half nurse 
crop) 
18.646 
It is reasonable to believe, therefore, that at least one and prob- 
ably two or three years could be gained in increasing select cotton 
seed if the method of nurse planting herein described were followed. 
Such a gain would more than repay the extra time and labor ex- 
pended, as well as the cost of the beans or peas. This would often 
be true even if the saving of seed were much less, for there is no 
basis for estimating the value of a particularly desirable selection 
of cotton. 
