Vators, good harrows, and efficient plows have been in-

troduced into many sections. Extensive cultivation

without rotation and without barnvard fertilizer has

resulted in the ruin of many fields in spite of the fact that

lint and oil cause no drain on mineral fertility. Cotton-

seed meal and commercial fertilizers are used to some

extent; diversified farming, rotation, and better culture

are badly needed.

Boll-weevils and boUworms have caused much damage ;

cotton wilt and root rot, both plant diseases, injure the

crop considerably. Better farming methods through

Fibers and Miscellaneous Crops 337

education of the farmers — Negro and white — will

bring success in pest control, progress in industrial ac-

tivities, and better citizenship.

373. Harvesting and marketing. ВЂ” As soon as the bolls

open, men, women, and children begin picking by hand.

Machines are used to some extent, but since the cotton

bolls do not ripen at the same time, and since the

machines injure the plants, they are not widely used.

After picking comes ginning, which consists of separating

the seed from the lint by means of revolving teeth.

The lint is bound in bales of approximately 500 pounds

and covered with coarse bagging. Buyers take a large

part of the crop at harvest, although some farmers,

singly or in cooperation, hold their crop in warehouses

for a more favorable selling time. Previous to long ship-

ment, the bales are pressed into about half the volume

of the original bales.

Variation in length of fiber causes a variation jn price,

usually from eight to fifteen cents a pound, though some

years as little as 5 cents has been realized. In 1914,

much of the crop could not be sold on account of a war in

Europe cutting off a large part of our export trade of

cotton, which ordinarily exceeds that of all other crops

combined.

374. Use. — Cloth factories in the United States,

England, Germany, France, Belgium, and Holland depend

largely on American cotton for raw fiber. Oil is also

taken from the seed, leaving oil-cake that is valuable for

stock-feed ; the bolls and coarser seed products mixed

with the oil-cake and ground are used for nitrogenous

fertilizer. A fine fuzz called linters, removed from the

seed by special ginning, is used for making carpets and

twine.

Some feed value is left in the stalks, which may be

338 The Principles of Agronomy

browsed. Burning the stalks is bad practice, unless

necessary in insect or disease control, because they add

organic matter to the soil when plowed imder.

FLAX {Linum usitatissimum) (Fig. 83)

Flax has been grown from the earliest tunes as a fiber

crop. Priests used it for their robes and for wrapping

miunmies, and the people made clothing from it in both

Palestine and Egypt long before the tune of Christ.

375. Description. — The plant consists of a slightly

branched tap-root; a slender stem from one to three

feet long, either simple or branched according to whether

it is in thick or in thin patches; linear lanceolate leaves

that are alternate and nearly sessile; beautiful, five-

parted, delicate blue flowers; or a globular pod filled

with ten flat-oval, russet seeds rich in oil. The bast

fiber, or linen, is separated from the stem by " retting."

376. Adaptation. — Flax will grow on any kind of good

soil in climates that permit the successful production of

wheat. Russia produces two-thirds of the fiber flax of

the world; Austria-Hungary, France, Belgium, and

Holland grow most of the remaining third. The crop of

the United States, grown largely for seed, is produced

almost entirely in the three states: North Dakota,

Minnesota, and South Dakota. Since many states in

wheat areas have flax-growing possibilities, the crop will

probably spread much. Like the United States, Ar-

gentina grows flax for seed, producing 34 per cent of the

entire seed-crop. This exceeds the production of any

other country. Russia is third and the United States

second in importance.

377. Culture. — Most of the flax crop in the United

States is produced on newly-broken ground before any

Fibers and Miacellarmms Crops 339

other crop is sown. After plowing, the land is smoothed

and two or three pecks to the acre planted one or two

inches deep by means of grain drills. Little treatment

F:<i. 83. — A good crop of fl&x seed. WiscooBiD.

before harvest is given. The seed and fiber crops are

harvested differently.

Seed flax is cut with a grain binder and threshed by an

ordinary tlireshing machine. Fo* fiber, the flax is pulled

by hand, tied in bundles, and cured in shocks. The

next process, retting, consists of spreading the stems

340 The Principles cf Agronomy

thinly on the ground and exposing them to dew or water

for three or four weeks. This loosens the fiber, which is

removed by pounding with mallets or by bending in a

machine. A thorough beating with wooden paddles

completes the separation, after which combing separates

the long fiber (flax line) from tiie short (tow).

378. Use and value. — Linseed oil, used in the manu-

facture of paints, varnishes, medicine, oilcloth, and

linoleum, is extracted from the seed by crushing, heating,

and pressing or by treating with naphtha. Residues,

pressed into oil-cake or ground into Unseed meal, are

valuable for stock-feed. The straw contains some feed-

ing value, and also a little brittle fiber that can be made

into coarse bagging or used for packing in upholstery.

Well-cured fiber makes a cloth that is valuable because

of its strength and uniform whiteness; because it does

not fray in laundering as does cloth made from cotton or

wool ; and because it takes starch well. For these rea-

sons, linen is used for collars, cuffs, other apparel, and for

household articles that must be of spotless white.

OTHER FIBERS

379. Hemp (Cannabis sativa), which is related to the

mulberry and the " mock," or osage orange, yields some

coarse fiber for ropes, burlap bagging, and matting.

The best crops are produced in corn-growing sections that

have a moist, fertile soil rich in lime. Though other sec-

tions have favorable soil and climate, the blue-grass

regions of Kentucky and Tennessee, and parts of New

York and Nebraska as yet produce most of the crop.

The stamens and the pistils are borne on different

hemp plants. Staminate plants branch less than the

pistillate, and on that account yield a better fiber. Both

Fibers and Miscellaneous Crops 341

kinds of plants vary from three to twelve feet in height.

A tap root-system, a strong stem, and deeply-serrated

leaves ending in a cluster are characteristic of the plant.

Oval seed, about one-eighth of an inch in diameter and

covered with a hull, are borne at the top.

From four to six pecks of seed are sown to the acre,

just before corn-planting season. Little cultivation is

necessary, as the plants usually smother weeds. When

ready for harvesting, the crop is cut with mowers and

binders, or by hand if it is too large for machinery. The

separation of fiber from the stem is similar to that of flax.