The Colfax chronicle., 1895-11-09
FARMER AND PLANTER.
COTTON CULTURE.
Improved Tillage and It's Relation TO the
Production of the Sfapie.

Improved Tllage and Its Relation TO the
Production OF the Staple.
One of the greatest drawbacks to inn
proved farming In connection with
cotton culture is the fact that cotton
does not apparently succeed well with
deep plowing. 1t has been found that
cotton Is apt to be later on deeply
worked soil, not fruiting well till the
roots strike hard bottom. From close
observation l am satisfied that this is
more apparent than real, and that
while in the immediate preparation of
the land for the cotton crop it is to
plow less deeply than for the other
crops in the rotation, the fact that the
land has been deeply broken in
previous plowings is no detri-
ment, but an advantage to the
cotton crop in increasing the capillar-
ity OF the soil, and warding off the
effects OF drought, the well-settled soil
having the same effects on the fruit
ing of the crop that an unbrolSen soil
would have and without the disadvan-
tages attending the real hard pan.
There is no point where greater inn
provement is needed in the south than
in the breaking and preparation of the
land for crops. With the incoming of
the era of farming instead of plant
ing, the one-mule plow should disap-
pear from the farm except for the pug
pose of marking rows perhaps. AS a
tool for bl eaking land or for cultivat-
ing crops it should be relegated to
the museums of departed tools. along
side the pointed tree limb of ancient
times. 1t may answer for the stirring
OF sand that has nothing but sand in
it. But in all the upland red clay of
the south no tool less effective than a
turning plow drawn by two good
horses should be used for the breaking
of land, and for all crops except cotton
large plow drawn by three mules or
horses should be used. For years in
Virginia never broke a field with
lighter team than three mules to
a plow. and followed in the same fur
row with a subsoil plow drawn by two
horses. SO as to break the clay fully
a foot, and generally more. All
over the red clay lands of the south
men are to-day plowing little furrow
with single mule, drawing a plow
that has more resemblance to a child's
play tool than to real plow for work,
and are working a soil exhausted of
the elements of fertility, while just
below the point of the tooth-pict plow
there lies a virgin soil waiting for the
man with courage and intelligence
enough to break it and let in the roots
of the peas and clover to unlock the
storehouse of big crops This is no
mere theory, for we have done it
right here. The old red clay hill
ON which the North Carolina
college of agriculture was built
was five years. ago the most
notoriously poor spot around Raleigh.
by deep breaking and the esof lit
tie clover tt was brought up to make
over fifty bushels of corn per acre,
with hardly any manuring.
While in the deep sandy soils of the
coast deep plowing may not be needed,
there is no practice that win more
rapidly tend towards the Improvement
of our clay hills than deep blowing,
subsoil blowing and shallow cultiva-
tion. Our farmers have long ago
learned the value of shallow culture
for the cotton crop, but most of them
still imagine that the corn crop
must be deeply worked, and have
its feeding roots lacerated with a plow.
When was young and thoughtless
i too worked corn with a plow and
was of the opinion that l must bank
up soil to the rows to keep it from
falling down in the winds, not reflect
ing that corn with uninjured roots,
and allowed to Giant its brace roots
on level surface would stand up bet
ter than that which had had its roots
lacerated and destroyed by the plow,
and could get no firm hold for IFS
brace roots on sloping bank of earth.
Then too where the oats crop is not
used in the rotation, and it is desired
to follow the corn crop with cotton,
this shallow culture is an advantage
in getting the soil below firmed for
the cotton crop We do not consider
it the best policy to have two hoed
crops follow each other, when it
can be avoided. but where peas are
sown In the corn, the cotton crop may
well follow it, provided the cotton hne
a liberal supply of the potash and
phosphoric acid it needs Some high
scientific authorities, who never
plowed an acre, have of late been try
ing to show to the farmers that the
best way to grow cotton is to apply
only just so much OF complete fer
tilizer as the immediate crop can use,
and they call the restoring of the plant
food in the soil, for the future benefit
of the soil, dealing in futures" Now,
as far as practical farming is con-
cerned, there is no business where it is
more profitable and essential TO deal
in futures and the farmer who does
not deal in the future OF his soil is
making sad mistake. 1t is this very
lack of regard for the future OF the
land that has brought the cotton coun-
try to the impoverished condition that