The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-12
Some Farm Notes.


The millions of acres planted to cotton
during the month of April and May are
being chopped to a stand this month. All
other work on the farm must yield
y precedence to this most important work.
Soon as the cotton is well up the work of
chopping should begin and be pushed to
completion-not that it is essential, or, in
fact iudiciOus, to reduce the crop to a
perfect stand at this first going over; but
it is important that the bulk of the plants
resulting from the customary thick seed
ing should be gotten rid of so as
not to allow the plants that are to
produce the staple to become stunted. At
this ehopping, which it is proposed to be
done as rapidly as possible by cut and a
push, no nicer work is required than to
thin down number about double of what
VIII finally be left to grow, and to smother
with loose soil the crab grass as it has
appeared in the row in its tender infancy
The usual preliminary to chopping out is
to side the rows with q narrow scooter,
but this is not always the best plan. If
no heavy. packing rain has fallen
since planting, and the seed beds
are still loose and light from previous good
preparation for planting chopping out can
very properly precede blowing and a
sharp sweep or light harrow should be
=
very close to the plants but very shallow
At this stage of the young plant the soil
is very loose and light and it is not de-
Sirable that it should be made any more
so while the tender plant is preparing to
throw out its lateral roots.
A long scooter run close to the row has
a tendency to loosen the soil too much for
the good of the young plant. So long as
the seed beds are mellow from the alb
sence of hard rains the sweep or the har-
row is the best implement to run around
with and oftentimes it will be better and
more economical to follow the choppers
than to go ahead Of them. When the
soil has become packed from hard rains,
and especially when the soil is clayey, of
courseEit is necessary to use the scooter
and ahead of the choppers.
In chopping out while the plants are
very young of course allowance must be
made for some plants dying out and being
diminished by insects. More than per-
feet stand should be left and close thin
ming should be deferred to the second and
final hoeing, and the strongest looking
plants then left. BY the latter part of
the month the middles should be well
broken with single or double shovels, still
using care not to run so close as to cut the
young laterals. No other deep blowing is
necessary. but all further cultivation in
June should be done with sweep or har-
row or cultivator.
The sweep is the usual implement
among southern farmers and on the small
farms harrow or cultivator is seldom
found. Frequently one or the other of
these is more appropriate to the work of
cultivation than the sweep. After the
first sweeping or narrowing, a wide sweep
or expanded harrow wide enough TO
break the whole crust of the middle at
one time going through should be used.
Deep preparations of the soil for plant
ing is desirable thing, but deep cultiva-
tion is not proper on our light soils. 1t is
very small proportion of soil in the pine
regions that will become so compact after
deep blowing at planting time that the
roots of corn or cotton will not be able to
penetrate it during the summer if shallow
cultivation is promptly given the crop
before the soil becomes dry.
1t is very good plan generally to go
over the crop sweeping or otherwise
cultivating every other middle and then
come back on the other
CORN AND PEAS.
EARLY planted corn should be in such
advanced condition by the middle or last
OF the month to allow of peas being sown
IN the middles. Assuming that the corn
Is in 6-foot rows, a row of peas should, by
all means, go in between the rows. 1t is
poor economy of labor to have to hoe peas.
They can be made with the sweep alone.
The corn field should not be relied on,
though, for a croD of peas. A special