The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1892-01-21
I4intless Cotton.

IintlesS Cotton.
Wesaw the lintless cotton plants on
exhibition at the Exposition in Raleigh.
The plants show awonderful productive
ness of bolls, or rather pods, of seed.
This plant is evidently a freak of ma
ture or what We commonly call sport.
Nature has simply left off the coma or
hairy appendage to the outer coating of
the seed. Whether this plant can be
cultivated with profit remains to be
seen. One thing is evident, it will be
much more exhaustive plant than the
ordinary form of cotton will reqire strong
or land for its culture. 1t must be re-
membered that it is the seed of cotton
which makes the heaviest upon the
soil. In tie seed are formed the main
part of what are known as the ash ele-
ments of the plant and the large part of
the nitrogen. All these must come from
the soil. The lint of cotton all comes
from the air, through the assimilatiug
organs of the foliage under the influence
ofsunlight. 1t is a pure carbo hydrate,
thepurest form of what is known as
Cellulose or woody film.
If we therefore substitute for the Or
dinary form of cotton variety which has
profusion ofthe soil exhausting seeds
and none of the air.made lint, it is very
evident that we made 8 more severe
drain upon our soil, which. must be sup.
piled arti6cially ifa good crop is expect
led. It remains to beseen, as said,
whether the lintless cotton will prod.ce
an excess of oil more than sufficient to
replace the loss of the lint and to pay
for the heavy manuriug it will need.
To have this proved satisfactorily, the
originator or those in whose hands this
freak occurred should place the seed
at the disposal of the experiment sts-
tions in the cotton States, SO that the
public may have an unbiased test. The
claim made that land may be enriched
by growing this variety of cotton for
the sake of the meal is simply preposter-
ous. That cotton.seed meal is good
source of nitrogen is we'll known, but the
plant gets this nitrogen from the soil,
and it must be there for it to get.
Cotton does not belong to the class of
plants which accumulate nitrates by
means of ferments in the roots, as the
legumes do, and the nitrogen must be
prepared for itin the soil, either arti6-
cislly or by a preceding crop ofpeas or
clover.
But even ifit did accumulate nitrogen
in the soil, nitrogen is not a COM
plete plants food, and land cannot be
made rich by adding nitrogen only. The
leguminous plants, which are SO active
in fixing nitrates in the soil, are only en-.
abled to do so by abundant supplies of
potash, lime and phosphoric acid, much
of which their deep root systems enable
them to bring up from the lime soil
which ordinary plants do not reach.
These mineral elements restored to the
coil by plowing under the leguminous
crops remain there till some plant calls
for them, being taken and held by the
absorptive power of the soil. Not 80
with the nitrogen. 1t must get into the
form of 8 nitrate before any plant can
use it, and nothing 30 rapidly teaches
away from the soil as the nitrates.
Any one who grows the lintless cotton
with the expectation of enrichiDg his
land without using manure from other
sources is destined to be disappointed.
IF the yield of --seds per acre will come
anywhere near what is claimed for it,
it is possible that with rich soil and
heavy msnuring it may give a paying
crop of oil and meal. The chief value
of the plant it seems to me will be in
the hands of skillful hybridizer for
crossing on lint bearing cotton, with
the hope of combining the productive.
ness of the plant with cotton produc-
zion capacity. A cotton plant bearing
lint and making as many bolls as this
would be "a great acquisition, and, as We
have seen, would not be any more ex.
haustive to the soil than this plant.
Used in this way for artificial aeed
breeding, the lintless cotton may be in
duced to put on its wo,.ly covering
again and prove of great value. In its
present state it is more of curiosity
than anything else.
What the South needs, mure than more
cotton seed meal, is the culture of forage
crops and the feeding of animals, whose
manure will not only furnish nitrogen
but all the other elements of fertility as
we'll; and proper rotation of crops, SO
thai a failure of the cotton crop will not
be 80 seriously felt. Let the cotton seed
be the incident rather than The object of
the crop, feed all the cotton seed you
make, and add plenty of good hay,
keep good stock and farm your lands, so
that there will be constant improvement
in their productiveness $50 shall thy
barns be filed with plenty and thy
presses burst with new wipe." Plant
fruits and m Ike gardens and homes in
stead of more cheerless cotton planta-
tions.-W. F. MASSEY, in Home and
Farm.
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