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About Southern cultivator. (Augusta, Ga.) 1843-188? | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1869)
78 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
