St. Landry democrat., 1885-05-09

| easily with these ploWs side plants will
any fair plow hands. The Well-pulver
lied clean surface will allow the thin
nest effective coat of soil to be thrown
yet plants will be sufficiently dirted
middle splitting will leave surface al
nearly level as before. Chop ont
promptly after siding no need here tC
wait for grass and weeds covered by
plOw to die for none were to be GOV.
cred. IT preceding work has been well
done, fair hand can chop to a stand OF
one or two stalks to hill two acres per
day. Plow, siding and splitting mid
dies, each time and nearly restoring
level every ten days in dry weather and
IN wet promptly after each rain leaves
surface dry enough to work. Do this
before crust gets too hard, neither grass
nor annual weeds spring from puIver-
lied surfaces; it apparently so careful
| inspection shows them rooted to minute
clOds left by imperfect work. They
are at first always surface rooted like
all plants after their kind, on approach
ing the surface, the roots die down from
below a certain depth they are de-
pendent generally on size of seed in
this condition they lie dormant till rain
comes forming a crust. An infants
touch will then uprOOt them, but if we'll
rooted, the stOutest mule with the
smallest plOW will fail to destroy. Keep
| the surface pulverized from February
| till November and it will never show in
that time weed or blade of grass,
however well seeded the preceding
| year.
This broadcast work, therefore,
| leaves the cultivated plants in excellent
condition to be tended with but little
/ IL fN
| that Of the sweep, chopping ahead of
sweeps, one hoe hand to each plow is
enough and more than half the time his
hoe is on his shoulder. Unless unusu-
ally wet,chOpping at every other sweep
ing is enough there is only OCCASION
ally weed or bunch of grass in sight,
they never come up broadcast. The
main working time of past season was
quite wet, but I only chopped twice
ahead or sweeps. In some lots cotton,
where blowing was interrupted by grain
harvest, had to hoe thoroughly twice
besides chOpping twice afterwards. In
this field in the fall one could find pien-
ty of seeded grass, but in the others
where there was no hoeing and but two
chOppings, there was almost literally
none. The success of the broadcast
plan depends entirely upon prompt
work it unable to do this we had
better let it alone.
| have had farmers to tell me that
without this broadcast narrowing, they
could tend crop without hoeing sim
ply by chopping ahead of plOws. Now
the phrase ''tending a crop" at times
has widely different meaning with
some, cleaning crops only at laying by
with others correctly speaking not even
then. / wish to compare notes only
with those who show clean crops
throughout, and who to do this must
hoe thoroughly three times and chop
twice ahead of sweeps, and in wet sea-
sons even more hoe work, besides te-
diOusly and labOriously hand thinning.
think the following tables show the
contrast fairly enough for comparison.
In plan without harrow some items
may seem rated too high, for instance
thinning" in the other plan, however,
several items are placed much higher
than ordinary cost, for example, q lad
driving harrow with generally two
horses. For practical purposes the ap-
Proclamation is close enough
100 ACRES WITH A HARROW.
Ridging one man and one horse SO days
rs cents. ~ u 70
Pulverizing middles one man and one
horse Is days, IS cents ....-.--...--. IL 90
horses Il days, $1.25 ...... ...-........ Is 90
horses i8 iavs, 81 as -. ............ % so
Chopping to stand : one man so days, soc 25 90
ChOpping ahead of sweep; one man 81
days, so cents. .a-....--.-- 30 90
Sweep ploWing one man and one horse
33 days times 1872 days, T5c.......... SO 90
e281 as
100 ACRES WITHOUT HARROW.
n, "a Sp e