The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-08-11
FARMER AND PLANTER.
REMEDY FOR COTTON RUST.
1he value OF Potash as Remedial Agent
for Cotton Rust.

The Value Of Potash AS Remedial Agent
for Cotton Rust.
w. M. C., Spartanburg, S. C., asks our
advice about the treatment of a piece
OF nat blackjack land which was for
merly very productive, but has been
exhausted by an improvident course of
cultivation of its humus, and is hard to
pillow. While small grain still does well
upon it, and cotton grows well, the cot
ton takes rust and does not fruit well.
Inc indications are unmistaka ble-the
land needs proper rotation with
leguminous crops, but FIRST of all it
needs lime and potash, and par
ticularly potash, Cotton rarely sue
cumbs to rust if grown on a soil
when it has plenty of potash. On an
Old red hill full of decomposing granite
rock, it will not make much weed"
but will fruit full and clean because
such soil supplies the needed potash.
Cotton fiber is nearly pure cellulose
and cellulose is the immediate result of
the transmutation of starch. No plant
can make starch unless supplied with
sufficient potash in an available shape,
and IL no starch is formed, no eellulose
is made-no growth of cotton fiber and
n weakened condition of the whole
plant, which invites the attacks Of the
rust. Many people and good cot
ton farmers oppose the use of
clover in n rotation with
cotton, averring that the neighborhood
OF clover provoxes rust in cotton, and
yet some OF the finest crops of cotton
we have ever seen were after clover.
The main difficulty has been that peo-
pie have tried to grow cotton on buried
crop of clover or peas, and such a mass
OF vegetable matter with it's accom-
panying heterogeneous matter has given
an immense growth of cotton plants,
and made the fruiting late and crop
small because the potash in the land
was not proportional to the demand.
1t would have been far better to have
used the mineral forms of fertilizers
(phosphoric acid and potash) to give
a fine growth of peas or clover,
and then to have moved the crop and
plowed the stubble only in preparation
for cotton, giving the cotton, too, fine
dressing of the cheap phosphoric acid
and potash, the clover roots furnish
ing an abundance of nitrogen. With
the piece OF land one correspondent
asks about, we would advise some
such treatment as this: Prepare the
land TO be put in oats next. September.
Make a mixture of two parts of acid
phosphate and one part of muriate of
potash, and apply 400 pounds per acre
to the land. Sow only one bushel of
oats per acre, and then SOW and brush
in Is pounds of crimson clover (Trifolian
fncarnation) per acre. This will
bloom early in April. AS soon as fair
ly IN bloom. NOV the whole, whether
the oats are ready or not, as they are
used only to protect the young clover
from the September sun. Now plow
the stubble, and, If practicable, give
dressing Of thirty bushels of lime per
acre and plant in corn. Plant cow peas
in the corn, and feed them off to stock
on the land when corn is gathered Put
this land in order for cotton and use
with the cotton similar dress
ing of acid phosphate and pot
ash that was given to the
clover and oats. At last work
ing up the cotton, SOW crimson clover
seed all over the land between the cot
ton rows. This clover may be fastened
during the winter or early spring and
the sod plowcd in May, and put in COW
peas, using on the peas another lighter
dressing of the acid phosphat and pot
ash. Now these peas for hay, and pre-
pare the land again for oats to be sown
in September. Use 800 pounds of the
acid phosphate and potash with these
and sow the land with the ordinary red
clover. BY this time the land will be
in condition to grow maximum crops
of either grain or cotton, and if, when
it comes into cotton, you give little
more potash, and always bear in mind
that the top growth of clover or cow
peas is always worth too much for feed
to pillow it all under, you will never
have any more rust in cotton; but bet
ter than that, you will be able to feed
more stock and make more barn ma
nure. But the great need now of your
land and of millions of acres of such
land in the south is potash.-W. P.
Massey, in Farmers Home Journal