44 BULLETIN 511, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
are of medium size and are worked by the owners or by tenants who 
supervise their own work. 
Improved labor-saving machinery is largely employed, which 
enables one man to work 40 to 50 acres of cotton with the exception 
of chopping to a stand and harvesting the crop. For this extra work 
negro labor is secured in the cities; men, women, and children come 
out in parties and live in tents while doing this work. 
Through the central part of the county runs a broad belt of Houston 
black-clay soil. This is a prairie region, with broad, gently rolling 
land that requires very little drainage. In this belt 80 per cent of 
the cultivated land is in cotton annually. Some corn and oats are 
grown for feed, but no rotations are practiced. In the western part 
of the county some wheat is produced, and in the eastern section on 
the sandy soils peaches and truck are extensively grown; but in both 
areas cotton is the principal money crop. Few cattle and hogs are 
kept, and few farm products other than cotton are sold. 
In preparing the land for cotton heavy teams and large implements 
are used. During the late winter or early spring the land is plowed 
with a 4-horse middle buster, or lister. The old cotton stalks are 
plowed up and the land thrown into beds the width apart the cotton 
rows are to be. With this implement only one furrow is required for 
each row. If the stalks are rank, they are cut up with a stalk cutter 
before plowing or are raked up after plowing and burned. Before 
planting, these beds are harrowed once with a spike-tooth harrow. 
Cotton is planted with a 2-horse 1-row lister planter. This planter 
has a broad shovel which tears down the bed and leaves the cotton 
planted almost level with the surface. The cotton rows average 3 
feet apart, and 2 to 3 pecks of seed are planted per acre. After 
thinning, the stalks are left from 12 to 15 inches apart in the drill. 
After planting, all the cultivating is done with a 2-horse 1-row 
4-shovel cultivator equipped with buzzard-wing sweeps instead of 
shovels. For the first cultivation, which is given ten days or two 
weeks after planting, small 6-inch or 8-inch sweeps are used next to 
the cotton and 10-inch or 12-inch sweeps on the outside. The cotton 
is chopped to a stand after the first cultivation and gone over with a 
hoe once or twice later in the season, to chop out any extra stalks 
and weeds. For later cultivations 12, 14, and 16 inch sweeps are 
used on the same cultivator. During the season four or five culti- 
vations are given, and level cultivation is always practiced. 
The black soils are very fertile and no commercial fertilizer is used. 
Little stable manure is produced, and this is applied broadcast to 
the poorer spots in the fields. 
The principal varieties of cotton grown are Mebane and Rowden. 
The most prevalent and troublesome weeds of this county are 
careless weed, hurrah grass, cocklebur, morning-glory, and Johnson 
grass. 
