The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1877-06-21


DR.. +. NJ. PendletOn of Georgia, in
writing on the above subject, saws: We |
write in the interest Of cotton planters. |
(no other class, men who find them |
selves with plenty of poor land without |
labOreTs, and who desire to know how to |
make mule feed in order to grow cotton, |
cultivate their fields annually and remu-
eraCiyely,, and yet gradually improve
their lands.
Admitting our pOstulate, that humus
Is the first principle exhausted from a
worn soil, and next to it nitrogen and
then PhosphOric acid, how are those to
he restored, so as to make the soil as
productive as ever? Without recon
mendlng any regular rotation of crops,
my plan Is as follows
Plant cotton in fresh lands, as long as
there IS sufficient vegetable matter in the
soil to produce good, healthy plants with
out rust, applying from one to two hun
bred pounds of good, soluble nitrophOs-
phate, with view, not 50 much to i'm
prove the land, as to make a remu-
erative crop. This application will in
crease the crop from seventy-five to one
hundred per cent. on production every
yeal, and from one to five hundred per
cent, on investment, according to The
season, cultivation and the price of cot
ton, and leave in the soil considerable
phOsphoric acid Tor the next crop.
Wherever the land is evidently meas
urably exhausted of the vegetable matter
(which is known by rust in the cotton
small weed, early maturity of fruit.
great susceptibility to drouth, Cit
must be changed from cotton to some
humus producing crop. The most profit
able to the planter is the Oat crop, be.
cause, while 1T makes more humus, it
gives him more mule feed for the labor
than any other plant. Corn and wheat
may, however, be used with goUd results
In lands not too much exhausted. But
small grain crop is essential every few
years, as corn is itself, to some extent. 8
destroying plant.
We SOW oats, then first, to make mus
Gle to produce cotton and second, to
grow humus, as food tor the cotton itself.
In order to do this, instead of applying
your cotton seed to corn after it has been
heated, and halt of the nitrogen lost, put
it on with your oats, sowing from
October to January, as occasion serves,
blowing in the oats and cotton seed
together with a turning shovel, SO as to
protect the roots AZ much as possible
from freezes, Apply from twenty to
NIFTY bushels OF cotton seed, according to
their abundance, per acre, and the
nitrogen IN the eed will not only make
good crop and leave a heavy stubble
but cause luXuriant crop OF grass and
weed to spring up, which, turned in, i
possible, before it goes to seed, will give
you IN the soil for the next cotton crop
not only fine supply of humus, but
more nitrogen than you could haul GU
during winter, if you had nothing els,
10 do, and an inexhaustib|e supply O
stable manure at your command.
You now prepare and plant this stub
Die III cotton the succeeding year, witt
the usual quantity of a good nitro
phosphate, in order to supply the mani
fest deficiency of nitrogen and phosphori
acid in every worn soil not that thes
elements have been exhausted from on
soils as yet, but existing as they do, I,
some extent, in unassimilated and insol
uble proportions they must be replen
ished by enough prepared by science t
supply the deficiency.
A soil well supplied with humus b
this rotation of crops, should be plante
two years in cotton, as the first year tn
finer stems and leaves are sufficientl
converted into humus to be appropriate
lis plant food, leaving the coarser stalk
and weeds to come into play the seCOn
year. Thus, a rotation of two wears /
cotton, and one in oats applying cotto
seed and guanO as indicated, will Civ
remunerative crops and keep the so
supplied with the three great principle
which has been and are being exhauste
from it, viz: humus, nitrogen, and pho,
phOric acid.