Bolly A f ter the fields have been cleaned of all cotton that can be picked by hand, there is always found on the plants a number of partially opened bolls the maturity of which has been prevented by frost. Until recently all such cotton was considered worth less. But the high price paid for the staple since 1905 has led to the invention of machinery for utilizing the unmatured bolls. These machines thrash out the seed cotton from the bolls, after the latter have been well dried, and the seed cotton is then passed to the gin and treated as the hand-picked cotton. The lint thus obtained is classed as *holly cotton,* and being of an inferior grade and staple sells for much less than hand-picked cotton. Its production is on the increase, but as yet is confined to Texas and Oklahoma, where the winter rainfall is much less than in the other States, and the high winds assist in drying out the frost-bitten bolls.
The yield of a field of cotton de pends upon a number of contingencies, among which may be mentioned the preparation of the soil, the care taken in the selection of seed, the proper use of fertilizers where the soil needs fertilization, the kind of cultivation the crop receives, the absence or presence ofplant diseases and of insects, the character of the soil, and above all the weather. A good yield, or such as the land is capable of producing, may not be expected with slip-shod prepara tion and cultivation, nor with insufficient nor misapplied fertilizers. Diseases of the plant, such as root rot, anthracnose, blight and shed ding of the fruit sometimes greatly reduce the yield. Some insects, such as cut worms, cater pillars, boll worms, are at times very destruc tive, while the boll weevil, ever present when the fields once become infested, has under favorable conditions for its propagation de stroyed as much as one-half the crop. An other pest, said to be just as destructive as the boll weevil, is the pink boll worm which has just made its appearance in the extreme southeastern counties of Texas. It is sup posed to have been introduced from Mexico, into which country it was introduced in 1911 from Egypt, which is said to be its original habitat. Adverse weather, such as to give the crop a late start, or droughts in August, or early October frosts may materially affect the yield. The average yield per acre for 10 years (1906 to 1915, inclusive) in each State, begin ning with Virginia and going westward, is as follows (in pounds) : Virginia 228.4, North Carolina 243.5, South Carolina 224.1, Georgia 194.2, Florida 123.1, Alabama 173.6, Mississippi 192, Louisiana 174.3, Texas 170,•ArIcansas 190.9, Tennessee 197, Missouri 286.6, Oklahoma 174.4, California 482, and for all States pounds. The higher yield in the Atlantic States is due to a more liberal use of ferti lizers and to a more general practice of inten sive culture. There are records of occasional extraordinary yields in some sections, for in stance, 15,100 pounds of seed cotton on five acres of well-fertilized pine-wood land in Wayne County, N. C.; 10 bales on four acres in Marion County, S. C. 12 bales on four acres in Pamlico County, N C.; and five bales, weighing 500 pounds each, on one acre of highly fertilized sandy soil in Washington County, N. C.
Ginning.— Cotton ginning in recent years has become a distinct business. The ginneries
are divided into three general classes, namely, those conducted exclusively for the public, those conducted exclusively for the plantation and those conducted for both the public and the plantation. The plantation ginneries constitute about 17 per cent of the whole. The modern up-to-date automatic gunnery practically does away with labor, and yields from 5 to 10 times as much lint cotton per day as was pos sible by the old method. A four-gin establish ment of 40 saws each when in constant opera tion will turn out 40 to 60 bales of cotton per day. Of the 24,418 active ginneries in 1914, 21,045 used steam power, 1,069 water power, 1,922 gasoline power, 342 electric power and 40 animal power. During this year cotton was ginned in 897 counties. The competition of the ginneries is so sharp that charges for ginning have been considerably reduced. It used to be $1 per hundred or $5 a bale. Now it is about $2 a bale where the ginner furnishes the ging and ties, or $1 a bale where the farmer furnishes both, the farmer taking all the lint and seed. Formerly the farmer furnished the bagging and ties and the ginner got all of the seed for ginning, now the ginner when the seed is taken also furnishes bagging and ties. It has become a very general practice, and this obtains particularly among small farmers and tenants, to sell the whole crop (in the seed) to the ginneries, the ginner paying one-third the market value of cotton. Before running it through the gin the seed cotton • should be thoroughly aired and dried, then stored so that the lint may absorb some of the oil in the seed, though this practice is not generally resorted to. It should then be passed through the to beat out the dust, sand and other trash, and thence to the gin which separates the lint from the seed. In ordinary seasons the lint cotton as it comes from the gin ought to weigh about 33% per cent of the weight of the seed cotton. In other words one-third should be lint and two-thirds seed, or 1,500 pounds of seed cotton should turn out a 500-pound bale of lint. But this depends upon whether the crop is early or late, whether the rainfall has been deficient or excessive, and also upon the fertility of the soil. Sometimes the proportion falls below and sometimes exceeds 33% pounds. Better seed selection, and improved methods of ginning, have now increased this proportion to about 35 per cent. After being ginned the lint cotton is passed into the press and packed in bales averaging each about 500 pounds gross weight, that is, including the ging and ties, each bale being covered with six yards of bagging weighing 24 pounds to the yard, and bound with six iron or steel ties weighing about seven pounds. The average or standard size bale is 24x54 inches. Though 500 pounds is the accepted average weight of a bale, the weight differs in nearly all of the States. In the Carolinas the average gross weight (i.e., including bagging and ties) is about 478 pounds, in Georgia 491, in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana 506, in Arkansas, nessee and Oklahoma 510, while in Texas it is about 520 pounds, the bales averaging heavier going from East to West. The average gross weight for all States is about 505 pounds.