EXPERIMENTS WITH SINGLE-STALK COTTON CULTURE. 5 
PLAN OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 
The county or parish agents were requested to make arrangements 
with the farmers for conducting the experiments on ordinary fields of 
cotton, planted and cultivated in the usual manner. It was sug- 
gested that a more accurate comparison of the systems of culture 
employed would be possible if the methods were compared in alternate 
rows and in alternate blocks of 4 or 5 rows. To do this it would be nec- 
essary to thin at the usual time each alternate row or block and leave 
the others for later thinning. In several instances this plan was fol- 
lowed, but in some instances comparisons were made only in alternate 
rows. In one case in Louisiana an entire acre, located in the center 
of a field of several acres, was grown by the single-stalk method. 
THINNING SINGLE-STALK ROWS. 
Any intelligent grower, after a little careful observation, can tell 
when to thin; but for the purpose of these experiments it was con- 
sidered more dependable actually to demonstrate the method than 
merely to issue written instructions. Accordingly, some one f amiliar 
with the new system directed the thinning of the single-stalk rows in 
most of the experiments. The few. farmers whose farms it was im- 
practicable to visit at this time thinned according to written instruc- 
tions, and these experiments were, with one or two exceptions, fairly 
dependable. 
The general advantage obtained in applying single-stalk culture is 
the suppression of vegetative branches. The distance at which the 
plants should stand in the row is a secondary consideration and 
must be regulated to suit local conditions, but as a rule the largest 
yields have been obtained with the plants much closer together than 
is now customary. Accordingly, the plants in the single-stalk rows 
of these experiments were spaced 6 to 10 inches, the standard aimed 
at being about 8 inches. The plants as thinned by the farmers in the 
old-method rows were variously spaced, according to usual practice, 
18 to 36 inches. 
RECORDING THE YIELDS. 
The recording of yields in each case was left with the farmer, who 
in some instances was assisted by the county agent. However, it 
was requested that the yield from each row at each picking be re- 
corded separately, and blanks for this purpose were furnished. Row 
yields were reported by 17 of the 21 farmers, while only total yields 
were reported by 4 farmers. The general rule followed was to have 
the picking done from only one row at a time and have the yield of 
that row recorded before proceeding to the next. 
