Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-11-02
A BAR TO HARD TINES.
THE GREAT DEFECT IN COTTON
CULTURE.
The Value of Deep PIOwIng-A
HOgansville Planters Wisdom
Rewarded-The Best Recipe for
Good CrOps-Tests In Ihe Old
Dominion.
BrddStreet's

The methods of cotton cultivation in the
South will be found, on careful examina-
ton, to have very much to do with the gen
eral question of profit. The cotton plant
itself is an herbaceous tree, with q root
striking as deep as any tree of its size, and,
though an annual In this climate, it is
perennial In the tropics, and tree, in fact,
wherever the perennial species can grow.
In its cultivation as an annual
this characteristic should not be for
gotten, and, first of all things, the soil
should be prepared for the growth and
fertilization of deeply penetrating roots. it
has been the habit In the older Atlantic
States to cultivate at very shallow depths,
although the criticism is not so applicable
at the present time as in former years,
though there 10 yet room for great i'm
provement. Breaking the surface to the
depth Of three or four inches has been
deemed sufficient in ordinary cultivation,
and this very imperfect opening up of the
soil was followed in cotton planting-a toll
erable practice for small grains, possibly,
but one certain to incur great risks for deep
rooted plants.
On the rich bottom lands of Mississippi,
and on river bottoms generally, is this de-
feet Of surface cultivation only slightly felt,
or, at least, it would not restrict production
to the same degree; but on the uplands, and
in dry seasons particularly, the root of the
plant cannot penetrate sufficiently to pro-
-duce crop. The soil may be highly fertil-
lied, but the fertilization is wasted; the sur
face is too dry to give noUrishment to the
roots, and below the surface neither the roots
nor the applied fertilizer can make use of the
soil. This is, to certain extent, the cause of
damage to the crop the present season; the
soil, otherwise well prepared by the liberal
application of fertilizers, loses the use of its
pulverized surface because of the drought
The contrast is much greater In a season
like the present than In one with the usual
amount of rain, although at all times the
difference between the free growth of plants
on deeply cultivated lands and the stinted
production on very thin soils is sufficiently
apparent. 1t will be impossible to count
with reasonable certainty on full crop In
any season without full and complete re-
form in this one of the methods OF cultiVa-
tion. II the soil is not thoroughly and
deeply broken in the upland cotton fields,
we now know that the cotton crop will not
attain its usual yield per acre, and no posi-
BILE state of the market as to prices can
atone for this deficiency In quantity.
A striking Illustration of the value of
better methods of cultivation is afforded by
the special crop of John II. Jones, planter
of Hogansville, Ga, whose limited planta-
tion Of eighteen acres has produced almost
as much per acre in 1881 as it did in the
prolific year 1880, when all the light and shall
low plowed soils did better, probably, than
at any time within ten years The report OF
this planters success is direct, and, un-
doubtedly, entirely authentic, and his only
point of marked distinction was in the
depth of his cultivation. The soil is re-
ported to be the usual upland, which on the
average has not yielded more than one
quarter Of bale per acre the present sum-
mer in Georgia and the Carolinas; yet in
this unprecedently bad year 1t gives one
bale and quarter per acre to the deep
plowing Of this more skillful planter.
The difference between one-half bale per
acre and the present crop would be every
thing to the cotton planters the present year,
and 1t would have saved them from most
embarrassing debts to the fertilizer dealers.
In good year their free purchases of fer
tilizers would have been wise; but In a year
of extreme drought, with shallow plowIng,
It has been comparatively worthless to them.
The applied stimulus does not reach the
plants, or the plants cannot avail themselves
of the stimulus.
1t must, Of course, be apparent that other
crops suffer equally from shallow cultiva-
tion; corn, in fact, probably suffers worse
in the present year. The corn crop has been
lost for the same reason, and generally 1t
was reported during the early part of the
summer that cotton endured the almost
universal drought better than corn. All
crops suffer from a restriction of their
growing roots to a thinly plowed surface
lying on hard or impervious subsoil, and
these defective methods of cultivation, in
the mere mechanical sense, have cost the
planters of the South heavy losses in the
crop of 1881.
A writer in the Southern Planter and Far
n1er, of Richmond, Va, for October, at
tributes his success in wheat growing solely
to deep plowing. He raised twenty bushels
to the acre on land previously supposed to
be worn out and practically abandoned,
using no manure or fertilizers. "Under the
old system of farming in Virginia the lands
have never attained One-third of their pro-
ductive capacity, and one can scarcely form
an estimate of their powers of production.
plowed from eight to ten inches deep, and
turned up soil that had not before been
reached for years, If ever"
The lesson taught the present year in the
partial failure of the cotton crop, not only
on dry uplands, but on many other badly
managed soils, should speedily lead to a
more thorough reform In the methods of
preparing the soil for cotton.