FARM PRACTICE IK THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON". 
19 
but few cattle are raised. Not enough fruit and truck is produced to 
supply the local markets. 
The tillage methods employed with cotton combine features of 
both the corn and the cotton belts, in that the heavy teams of the 
corn belt are employed, with the type of implements and methods 
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Fig. 8.— Harrowing a field before plowing the land for cotton. In many parts of the cotton belt a disk 
harrow is used to cut up the old cotton stalks before plowing the land. 
found in the cotton belt. In preparing the land the old cotton and 
corn stalks are cut up with a stalk cutter or disk harrow before plow- 
ing. (Fig. 8.) The land is then broken with a 2-horse or 3-horse plow. 
About half the land is broken level. Later it is harrowed with a spike- 
tooth harrow and bedded with a middle buster, or lister. These beds 
are slightly leveled off with a log 
drag and the cotton planted on 
the bed. About half thef armers 
bed the land as it is broken. 
This is done with a lister or 
with a turning plow. The beds 
are harrowed with a spike-tooth 
Fig. 
-A spike-tooth harrow, well adapted for pre- 
paring a seed bed on any type of soil. 
harrow (fig. 9) and then leveled off with a log drag before planting 
the cotton. Cotton is always planted on a slight bed and either a 
1-horse 1-row or 2-horse 2-row planter is used. The rows average 3| 
feet apart, and about a bushel of seed is planted per acre. After 
chopping, the stalks are left from 15 to 20 inches apart in the drill. 
The cultivating after planting is largely by means of 2-horse imple- 
ments. The first cultivation is given with a 2-horse 1-row cultivator 
