FARM PRACTICE IN THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON. 37 
age size of the farms surveyed is 221 acres, with 136 acres cultivated. 
The farms are owned by white men, who live on them, but most of the 
work is done by tenants under the supervision of the landlord. Most 
farmers have comfortable houses and good outbuildings and appear to 
be prospering. This is especially true of the bottom-land farmers. 
The principal crops grown are corn, oats, wheat, hay, bluegrass 
for pasture, and cotton. No definite rotations are practiced, but 
the crops are changed from field to field without following any fixed 
order. Very little cotton is grown in the northern part of the county, 
but it is produced more extensively south 
of Pulaski. Corn is planted on the more 
productive bottom lands and cotton on 
the uplands. Many of the hillsides are 
in bluegrass pasture or clover. Oats 
are grown only for feed, and very little 
wheat is produced. Most of the corn is 
fed on the farm. Some hay is baled FlG - 18 - A 1JbaB » 2 " sllovel c ^ tivat « r 
. . . , used for the tillage of cotton in Giles 
and SOld. Cotton IS the prmcipal Crop County, Tenn., and other sections of 
sold. Many sheep and goats and a tne cotton belt - sometimes small 
„ , » , , n -ip sweeps are attached instead of shovels. 
lew beel cattle and hogs are raised lor 
market. Extra brood mares are kept on the farms, and nearly every 
farmer raises mule colts for market. The farm income is derived 
principally from the sale of live stock and cotton. 
In preparing a seed bed for cotton, if the previous crop was cot- 
ton or corn the old stalks are sometimes broken up with a stalk 
cutter or disk harrow. Early in the spring the land is broken level 
with a 2-horse plow. The land is harrowed with a disk or spike- 
tooth harrow, the rows laid off with a 1 -horse shovel plow, and abed 
made on this row with a turning plow or with a 1 -horse sweep. 
Sometimes the bed is made without laying off the row. These beds 
are often harrowed with a spike-tooth harrow, which smooths off 
the tops and leaves them almost level with the surface. Cotton is 
planted on this bed with a 1 -horse planter at the rate of 5 pecks of 
seed per. acre. The rows average 3 feet apart. After chopping, 
the stalks are left from 12 to 15 inches in the drill. 
For cultivating after planting, 1 -horse implements are princi- 
pally used. Just after the cotton is up, the first cultivation is given 
with a 1 -horse harrow-tooth cultivator, and generally this implement 
is used for the second cultivation also. Then the cotton is chopped 
to a stand. After this, most of the cultivating is done with a 1 -horse 
2-shovel cultivator known as a "double shovel" (fig. 18). This cul- 
tivator is equipped with broad shovels or sweeps. Two furrows are 
required for each row with this tool. A few farmers use a 2-horse 
4-shovel cultivator, while a few use a 1 -horse sweep. A total of ^ve 
or six cultivations is given during the season. At the third or fourth 
