g, and the danger of bringing poor soil to the
surface, have led many planters to oppose this plan. Sandy soils are
made thereby too dry and leachy, and it is a questionable proceeding to
turn the heavy clays upon the top. Planters are, as a result, divided in
opinion as to the wisdom of subsoiling. Nothing definite can be said
with regard to a rotation of crops upon the cotton plantation. Planters
appreciate generally the value of broad-leaved and narrow-leaved plants
and root crops, but there is an absence of exact knowledge, with the
result that their practices are very varied. It is believed that the
rotation must differ with every variety of soil, with the result that
each planter has his own method, and little can be said in general. A
more careful study of the physical as well as the chemical properties of
a soil must precede intelligent experimentation in rotation. This
knowledge is still lacking with regard to most of the cotton soils. The
only uniform practice is to let the fields "rest" when they have become
exhausted. Nature then restores them very rapidly. The exhaustion of the
soil under cotton culture is chiefly due to the loss of humus, and
nature soon puts this back in the excellent climate of the
cotton-growing belt. Fields considered utterly used up, and allowed to
"rest" for years, when cultivated again have produced better crops than
those which had been under a more or less thoughtful rotation. In spite
of the clean culture, good crops of cotton have been grown on some soils
in the south for more than forty successive years. The fibre takes
almost nothing from the land, and where the seeds are restored to the
soil in some form, even without other fertilizers, the exhaustion of the
soil is very slow. If the burning-up of humus and the leaching of the
soil could be prevented, there is no reason why a cotton soil should not
produce good crops continuously for an indefinite time. Bedding up land
previous to planting is almost universal. The bed forms a warm seed-bed
in the cool weather of early spring, and holds the manure which is
drilled in usually to better advantage. The plants are generally left 2
or 3 in. above the middle of the row, which in four-foot rows gives a
slope of 1 in. to the foot, causing the plough to lean from the plants
in cultivating, and thus to cut fewer roots. The plants are usually cut
out with a hoe from 8 to 14 in. apart. It seems to make little
difference exactly what distanc