Rotation of Crops
A Safe and Sane System of Crop Rotation in Boll Weevil Territory Absolutely Necessary
When the boll weevil first appears in a territory, the first efforts at breaking away from all cotton usually consist in going largely into another single crop system of farming rather than the production of a variety of crops. The evils of the new system are usually as great as those of the all cotton system. Many farmers rush into the truck business. Of course, truck crops should be grown on every farm in the weevil territory, and, in some particular localities, they may constitute the main reliance for cash, but it seems that the truck business is a gamble for the average cotton farmer. Trucking has lured many a farmer to financial ruin.
The crop rotation for the average cotton farmer should include oats, corn, some cotton, and at least one leguminous crop. Along with this should go the growing of hogs, mules, horses and cattle instead of having to buy them from other sections of the country.
It is not possible for the farmer in the boll weevil territory to entirely supplant cotton as a money crop, but this crop should be supplemented with the growing of home supplies, as well as other crops which will produce cash returns.
Cotton is one of the greatest cash crops, and while it should be the main money crop in the boll weevil territory north of latitude 32, it should not be the only cash crop grown. The safest plan either within or without the boll weevil territory is to follow a system of diversified farming. The cotton farmers, especially those in the boll weevil territory, cannot afford to depend entirely on cotton as a cash crop. A system of rotation suitable for cotton belt farmers should include some of the following staple crops:
Oats are probably the surest and best paying small grain crop that can be grown over practically the entire cotton belt. The same soil that will produce one bale of cotton per acre will grow 60 bushels of oats. At the average price that has prevailed for oats during the past five years, the 60 bushels will sell for $36 to $40, and the straw, when baled, will often pay the larger part of the expense of growing the grain.
The bale of cotton per acre land will produce about $30 worth of oats, at least one and a half tons of lespedeza hay, and five bushels of lespedeza seed. The lespedeza hay will sell for about $12 per ton and the lespedeza seed for about $3 per bushel. The total is $63 per acre. We are personally acquainted with a farmer who has averaged $65 per acre for eight years.
Thirty dollars worth of oats and twenty bushels of soy beans at $1.50 per bushel, and one and a half tons of soy bean hay at $8 per ton, means $72 per acre. These are very conservative figures. At the Mississippi Delta Experiment Station in 1912 the land produced ninety bushels of oats to the acre, twenty-two and a half bushels of soy beans, “after losing a good percentage of the beans by shattering,” and 5,200 pounds of soy bean hay. The average yield of cotton on the same land was about 500 pounds of lint per acre.