16 BULLETIN 511, U, S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The cotton plant, on the other hand, has a deep taproot system, 
with very few shallow surface roots. Extra cultivation therefore 
does very little injury to the cotton roots, and the advantages of 
cultivation, such as aerating the soil, liberating plant food, and con- 
serving moisture, are all secured without detriment to the cotton 
plant. 
GROUPS OF COTTON-GROWING AREAS. 
The areas in which cotton-tillage surveys were made may be 
grouped into four divisions (Table IX) : (1) The Delta areas; (2) the 
South Atlantic division; (3) the Intermediate areas; and (4) the 
Southwestern division. 
The Delta area studies were made in Yazoo, Sharkey, and Wash- 
ington Counties, Miss., and in Pemiscot County, Mo. 
In this division, especially in Mississippi, the farms are very 
large and are operated by the tenant system. Usually the owner 
lives in a near-by town or village and visits the farm only occasionally 
to direct the work. A hired superintendent lives on the farm and 
has direct control of it and the supervision of the tenants. 
The soils in the Delta areas are very fertile, and little commercial 
fertilizer is used. Average crop yields are higher than in any other 
area studied. More tillage after planting is given cotton in this area 
than in the other regions surveyed. This is due largely to the fact 
that many of the fields are infested with nut-grass, and to control it 
extra tillage is required. 
The South Atlantic division is composed of North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. In this division eight sur- 
veys were made. The farms are of medium size and are largely oper- 
ated by the tenant system, but under the direct supervision of the own- 
ers. The prevailing system is to furnish each tenant with a mule and 
20 or 25 acres of land, the greater part of which is planted to cotton. 
Cotton is the most profitable crop in this area, and one reason for a 
1 -horse tenant system is that when each tenant has only a 1 -horse 
crop he grows all the cotton he and his family can pick. With a 
2-horse crop the tenant could not increase his cotton acreage because 
of scarcity of labor for harvesting, so he would necessarily grow other 
crops, such as corn or oats; consequently a larger percentage of the 
land is cultivated in cotton by the 1 -horse tenant system, with a 
relatively larger return for the landowner. 
Considering crop yields, land values in this division appear fairly 
low; but in this connection the fact that large applications of com- 
mercial fertilizers are required to produce such yields tends to alleviate 
the apparent low price of land. Throughout this division the prevail- 
ing soil type is the Norfolk sandy loam, but it grades into a clay loam 
in those areas farther from the coast. 
