COTTON SPECIAL.
A Farm and Home Weekly For the Carolinas, Virginia,
Georgia and Tennessee.
QUNDED, 1886, AT RALEIGH, N. C.
- a v
Vol. XXyill. No. 11. v SATURDAY, MARCK 1913. Weekly : $1 a Year.
- . v ' -
Fewer Acres in Cotton More Ubtton to the Acre.
THIS, to our thinking, should be the
slogan for cotton growers this year
or any other year for that matter.
The folly of an excessively large crop
has been repeatedly pointed out and is now
generally recognized. Yet these excessive
crops are planted every few years and low
prices follow. These, in turn, are follow
ed by strenuous efforts to reduce the acre
age; and whenever the acreage is reduced,
or a bad crop year comes, and the price
goes a little above normal there is another
general rush to plant every available acre
to cotton.
We said last week that rthe only way
to make the cotton crop a steadily
profitable crop, would be to change
Southern farming from the single "sale
crop" basis to the basis of a system of di
versified farming in which livestock, food
crops, feed crops and soil-building crops
should all be given their proper places. This
we believe with all our heart; and if any
reader has not laid out his farming to con
form to a systematic rotation which con
siders first the fertility of his soil, he
should begin this spring to work out such
a rotation.
This is the rational way permanently to
reduce the cotton acreage to a reasonable
size and to insure reasonable crops from
the land planted. As a step in this direc
tion many farmers will do well to consider
and to act upon what Mr. J. A. Wade says
on page 5 of this issue. It is hard to ------------
find words fitly to describe the suicidal folly of planting to cotton,
year after year, 12,000,000 acres of land that cannot reasonably be ex
pected to produce a profitable crop. Let us implore every reader of
The Progressive Farmer who has been guilty of this folly in the past to
see that his part of it ends this very year. -
Plant to cotton this year only land that will give you a paying crop.
It only makes you poorer to tend those low-producing acres.
Then, on the land you plant use every effort to make a good yield.
There is no reason ever to expect cotton prices high enough to make
the average yield profitable. It s folly to say that instruction in cot
ton growing is not needed. Good farming yes, respectable farming
would double the average yield; and as long as 30,000,000 acres of land
is tended to produce the crop that should grow on 15,000,000 acres,
the cotton farmer is going to be in poor shape to fight the battle for a
scientific marketing system. What the farmer wants is not so much
higher prices as larger profits, and his first duty is to make his crop at
a reasonable cost. To:do this he must, first, stop wasting labor on
fields that cannot pay and, second, make the fields he does tend pro
duce their crops at as low cost as possible. When he does this, some
profit will be assured; and he will soon be in a position to finance his
own cotton crop and to help fix the price for it.
x
COTTON ON DYNAMITED LAND-FARM OF R. E. RYAN, CULLMAN, ALA.
FEATURES OF THIS ISSUE.
ABOUT COTTON
CROP ROTATIONS AND THE COTTON PARMER The Folly
of the One-Crop System.... .. . 3
DISEASES AND INSECTS Anthracnose, Spider, Root Louse 13, 14
DON'T PLANT THAT POOR ACRE TO COTTON Why You
Cannot Afford to Do It. . 5
HOW TO GET A "GOOD STAND Three Things to Observe. ... 6
HOW TO MAKE COTTON PAY THIS YEAR Suggestions by
Prof. DeLoach, C. L. Newman, B. L. Moss, D. R. Coker 5
LETTERS FROM FARMERS Items of Helpful Experience, 6, 7, 10
LONG-STAPLE COTTON Another Letter from Mr. Williams. . 9
SEED BREEDERS NEEDED A Great Opportunity 18
SOIL PREPARATION FOR COTTON Some Common Methods. 8
STUDY THE COTTON PLANT Outline of a Course of Study. . 15
OTHER FARM TOPICS
A WOMAN'S POULTRY YARDS Diagrams and Explanation. . 21
EDUCATION CO-OPERATION, LEGISLATION Mr. Poe's Com-"
ments on Current Events 19
ODDS AND ENDS OF HOUSEKEEPING Mrs. Hutt's Letter. . 16
READY-MIXED FERTILIZERS Their Defects and Advantages 22
STATE AID IN MARKETING Why Necessary 28
THE PAPERS YOU READ Some Pointed Letters 27
VIRGINIA FARMERS AND THE LIME PROBLEM A Letter
From Editor Cates . . . 22