The Nevada County picayune. (Prescott, Ark.) 190?-current, 1920-09-23
SEVEN ESSENTIAL Factors
IN Big YIELDS OF COTTON
WHEN ANY ONE OF THEM is LACKING, LOW PRODUCTION
RESULTS SAYS REPORT OF PROFITABLE FARMING
PARTY, TELLING OF RECENT TOUR

Field after field of cotton was seen
In every locality visited where the
plants were uniform in height with
squares and bolls thick on the bottom
limbs as well as those higher up.
Corn is generally planted that has
been bred to produce short stalks
with ears not over waist high, the ears
so heavy that they hang down.
Legumes and Cover Crops.
The growers of high yields of cot
ton and agricultural college men
whom we met were unanimous in stat
ing most positively that their large
yields could not be secured only when
the soil had an abundance of humus
and decayed vegetable matter through
growing and blowing under legumes
and cover crops and blowing under
the cotton stalks and leaves. The
man who gets high yield never
burns the old stalks. The cotton
grower to secure high yields must
put into his soil every year large guam
titles OF vegetable matter.
They find that the crop that en-
roches the land the most and adds the
greatest quantity of vegetable matter
to the soil is velvet beans. The beans
are planted in the corn and after the
corn is gathered the corn stalks and
bean vines are turned under
In GurnSfar co,apfy Gaorcio almost
every field of corn was thick with vel
vet beans that the first of August
were 80 heavy that they were bend
ing down the corn stalks. We found
velvet beans in all sections visited. In
Wilson county, Is miles farther north
than Little Rock, one-fifth of the corn
had velvet beans in it. Velvet bean
seed cost less an acre than that of
any other legume.
Cow peas are planted in much Of
the corn where velvet beans were not
growing and in practically all the
fields where a crop Of grain had been
harvested.
Soy beans were growing between
the rows in hundreds of acres of corn
because cow peas could not be Sc
cured. A considerable number of cot
ton growers SOW crimson and bur
clover. Some of the growers of the
highest yields OF cotton SOW AbruzZi
rye between the rows Of cotton after
the first picking The commercial fer
tlizer unused by the cotton makes a
rank growth of the rye and it is turn
ed under as late in the spring as it is
safe to plant the cotton.
Effect of High Yields.
Twelve to fifteen years ago when
the yields were so low in the sections
we visited land sold from $3.50 to $25
an acre Now because the methods of
farming have made the yields of the
good farmers in whole counties a bale
or more an acre, land sells quickly at
$3.50 to $500 an acre when any is of
fered.
All Farming Not Good.
Not all the farms we saw produced
a bale or more an acre. The places
visited nave their sloven and lazy
cotton growers, but large majority
OF the farmers raise these high yields
and the number who do not is steadily
decreasing.
Sometimes we saw on one side of a
fence field of cotton waist high,
stand perfect; plants heavily fruited
with a promise of bale to a bale and
half an acre. On the other side a
field of humble bee" cotton six to
eight inches high with but little fruit
on It, The man who had the good cot
ton follows the best methods; the
man with the poor cotton farms as they
used to farm twenty years ago.
Sec for Yourself.
We are frank to say that had we not
our own eyes the character of the
soil and the yields OF cotton and corn
raised on 1t. we would not have be-
lieved what we have told
We urge every cotton grower who is
in position to do So TO see all the
country tnat we saw, or at leaSt 10
see the farms In the sections around
Americas, Ca. and Huntsville and
Bennettsville, s. c. Every Arkansas
cotton grower who will do this will
come back with the determination to
make our fields in the hill lands bet
ter than a bale an acre and in the
bottom lands more than two bales an
acre.
We ask those who cannot this sum-
mer visit the cotton fields of Georgia
to see the cotton and corn on the
farm OF Sam w Mcleod, near War
rem, Ark, who has $50 acres of cotton
and 250 acres of corn on thin. sandy
upland, all fertilized The cotton
promises TO produce bale an acre
and the corn 30 bushels, while adjon-