6 BULLETIN 896, U. §. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
It may be observed that in all these areas commercial fertilizers are 
used quite extensively. Ellis County, Tex., which possesses a soil 
type known as Houston black clay, did not report any expense 
for fertilizers used in cotton production. Rusk County, Tex., has 
at least three well-defined soil types; namely, the Orangeburg fine 
sand, Norfolk fine sand, and the Susquehanna fine sandy loam. 
It will be seen that practically all districts contain soils of the 
lighter types. Many of these types are deficient in organic mat- 
ter. The practice of growing legumes, such as the velvet bean, 
cow peas, and peanuts between the rows of corn has given excellent 
results, and greater interest will be manifested in these crops as the 
benefits come to be understood more clearly. 
Fic. 2.—A cotton planter’s home, Anderson County, S. C. 
SIZE OF FARMS. 
Recent information is not available with respect to size of farms in 
the counties which were selected for this investigation. However, the 
Thirteenth Census gives a detailed report on the size of farms for these 
counties during the year 1909. Therefore, these figures have been 
used for comparison with the farms upon which cost estimates were 
obtained. Table IV contains two columns, one giving the size of all 
farms in each county by groups, and the other showing the distribu- 
tion of the 842 records in accord with the size-groups established by 
the Census Bureau. In the census classification a cropper farm is 
considered as a unit, and not as a part of a plantation, as in the classifi- 
cation followed in this survey. This undoubtedly accounts for the 
relatively large numbers which the census reports show for the size- 
group including farms from 20 to 49 acres. There are 148 farms, or 
17.5 per cent of the total number of farms surveyed, which fall within 
the group of 20 to 49 acres. More than 50 per cent of the records wil) 
