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LETTER FROM MR. MCKSON.
Rest Manner of Keeping and Improving Cot
ton Seed.
Sparta, Feb. 10th, 1869.
Editors Southern Cultivator :—I went into the bu
siness of selling cotton seed unwillingly—but it has paid
me very well, and will pay purchasers better, if they will
manage them properly. I will give my views as to the
best manner of keeping them pure and improving them.
There is a belt of land running through Georgia and oth
er cotton States, that I consider the home of the cotton
plant—possibly the bottoms in the West may be better
adapted to it. The Southern line commences in Georgia
above Augusta, and ends just above Columbus, embracing
the Southern granitic region—mu’afco, pine, and oak and
hickory lands, and extending one degree North. I
prefer the Southern part of this belt. The North end of
my farm is included in this Southern part. I have sold
no seed made on the Southern part of my farm—it be
ing too sandy to keep the seed up to the desired
standard. Planters living South of this line, would do
well to obtain seed from this region once in three or four
years. If that trade should spring up, seed could be de
livered, sacked, to the nearest depot,at 60 to 60 cents per
bushel. South of this belt, the cotton plant is inclined
to produce too much weed and too little fruit. In it,
with proper preparation, rotation, manure and rest, you
can make the cotton plant just what you please, as gen
tlemen from all parts of Georgia can testify, who have
seen my crop—making two bales per acre on cotton from
26 to 28 inches high.
To improve the cotton plant, you should select seed
every year, immediately after the first picking, up to the
middle of October, selecting (in the case of Dickson seed)
from stalks that send out one or more suckers near the
ground, sometimes called arms. These arms need not be
looked for on poor land. Secondly, irom those that send
out limbs thick with three to six bolls, from a half inch to
one and a half inches apart on the limbs. If you do not
keep your land well charged with humus, the cotton limbs
will be too short—manure well, plow deep, cultivate with
the sweep very shallow—scrape with the hoe instead of dig
ging or chopping—if you cut the cotton roots, you will
make stalks instead of bolls. On all farms, there are
some acres that produH cotton better than others. Seed
for planting, should always be selected from these spots.
I will here answer some of the thousand questions ask
ed me by as many hundreds of persons—receiving from
one to two hundred letters per week, I cannot answer
any of them. If they would only take the Southern Cul
tivator, they would be in possession of all the answers
they wish. Messrs. Editors, if you would use the same
amount of energy in extending the circulation of your pa
per as you do in getting it up, you might get from fifty
to one hundred thousand subscribers. The present is a
most favorable time to do so. Go to work in that direc
tion. Many planters bPf'e visited me the last year, and
they were astonished that, my cotton, planted the 10th of
May, was more forward' than theirs, planted the 10th of
April. I often told them, in a joking way, that they were
root cutters; they often confessed they put the turning
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR.
plow to the cotton the first plowing, then the sjjpvel
plow the balance of the season, getting no bolls until atgg
ter the cotton was laid by.
To those who wish to know my distance in planting, &c.,
let me say, Ido not approve of hill planting. I would
not have a row nearer than 4 feet. Use a No. 2 Scovell
hoe—leave 2 to 3 stalks in every hill—distance between
hills the width of the hoe. There are many reasons for
this: the best one is, it makes it more forward. To those
who wish to know my opinion about the various manures,
I refer them to what I have often said in the Southern
Cultivator. I will merely mention that I consider ammo
nia the Ist —rsoluble bone the 2d best—salt and plaster a
good preventive of rust in cotton, besides possessing oth
good properties.
Those who wish to hear from file, must take the South
ern Cultivator. The pen cannot come to time with type
and the steam press. I must-be allowed to work the way
I can do the planter the (if any.) I cannot
do it with the pen alone. I must have the aid of type
and steam. Very truly yours,
DAVID DICKSON.
»"> I iQJi » -<J>- *-£33=.. —
AGRICULTURAL VALUE OF THE PHOS
PHATES.
[continued.]
Phosphoric Acid is not a fertilizer of itself, but in com
bination with lime, soda, magnesia, &c., constituting the
phosphates, it enters the roots of all plants, and thus
becomes an important source of nutrition to them. We
shall use the term Phosphoric Acid interchangeably with
phosphate of lime. &c.
The average analysis of four cotton soils from Georgia,
South Carolina and Mississippi, by Prof. Jackson, of Bos
ton, gives the following results. They were all, doubt
less, fertile soils:
Silica 84.89
Alumina 4.89
Per Oxide Iron and Magnesia 3.13
Insoluble Veg. Matter.... 3,51
Soda gg
Potash.
Magnesia,
Crenic apocrenic and humic acids 42
Phosphoric acid, 42
Lime gg
Chlorine, . 05
* Sulphuric Acid,
A number of other analyses which we have examined,
from Europe and the Northern States, places the phos
phoric acid much lower, and the lime and potash much
higher. One of the cotton soils was alluvial, from the
Savannah River, and not so good a test of upland cotton
soils. We may safely place these analyses of Dr. Jack
son, as above the average for the cotton soils of the South.
Dr. Erni, Chemist of the Agricultural Bureau, gives us
two analyses of soils well adapted for cotton—one from
Georgia and one from Arkansas. The average of these
for the more valuable salts, stands thus:
k* me 1.04 percent
Magnesia, gg
Potash