Abstract: The field experiments were conducted at the Experimental Station of Soil Amelioration, Shihezi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from May to August in 2000. It showed that the lateral distance of 110 cm could meet the water demand of cotton growth. Through the comparison of plant height, leaf area, root length, cotton yield and quality for 3 different lateral distances, the lateral distance of 110 cm, i.e., one lateral controls 4 rows of cotton, is better than other 140cm and traditional distance (average 70 cm), which can save one third of lateral and reduce the investment of system to a large extent.