The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1894-12-21
Red Rust In Cotton.

A farmer in Eastern Nore .otton
linz sent us last summer sonssh raJ
leaves affected, as he said, BY sbowoJ
rust. A brief examinat@gg tbo+ l.
that there was no rust at ." oro,ytL,
none of the usual fungpTgpb loovno
commonly called trusts No so.ooiIo o5
were badly infested VIII 20 toIo~;mS
"red spider" (TetraDy' hpiIIiant ro5
one of the mites. IDe .cnnio ai,o 80 90
color and almost micrGtif'1ito M. ' 10 "
the insects, together WIS.,, "art;Cniori, , w
tude, gave the Leaves, I IoS n ca
the under side, aredi nor, Lam, Inc I'M IN
healthy condition %~He leaves was
du @ 70 tbs o4tocEs ofthe insects. When
que que 10 o Vhe ot'a oorSnerous under the in
shey become md dry weather, they
1 1sa Oh 81 Il mo- 9iality of the foliage com
,,SstaI, Sr nJ healthy foliage is es-
piet t: a. az SrOwth and productiveness
e sc; S0S it is evident that they
- "Ly sire serious check to the
i nusS hey infect. Close observers of
pi"n life have ofton noticed that
i,iSns With weakened vitality soonest
bbOaD,ae the prey of insects. While
20 cannot control the weather
=, the temperature, we can put
ar plants from the start in such
. vigorous condition by fertiliza-
ZION and by good culture as to enable
them to resist better the attacks of in
Iects and fungous diseases. This has
caused some to assert that red rust is
caused by deficiency of potash in
The soil. While this in one sense is
true, it is not the whole truth. Had
there been an abundance Of potash
and other elements of plant food in
The soil the vigorous vitality of the
plants would have enabled them to re-
sist the influence of the insects until
a change in the weather conditions
would have checked their operations.
Cotton we'll supplied with kainit and
acid phosphate will undoubtedly suffer
less from this red rust, not because
potash drives the mites, but because q
fully nourished plant can better over
come untoward circumstances than o
weak one can. Therefore the best we
can do is to SO encourage the growth
of the plants as to make them resistant
to their attacks. In nearly all Of the
cotton lands of the South Atlantic
Coast the soil is naturally deficient
in potash. Hence the wisdom of
using kainit and other forms of
potash fertilizers, with a good adj
dition of phosphoric acid in the
readily accessible form of acid phos-
phate, to give that vigorous growth
which the unaided soil in most places
cannot supply. Some of our best
growers are of the opinion that red
clover on a sandy soil causes rust in
cotton. This will account for the fact
that on our red clay soils, which are
we'll adapted to clover, and where in
most seasons it resists the red spider,
no such influence has been observed
on the cotton. The weakened condi.
ton of the clover on these sandy lands
renders it an easy prey to the attacks
of the mites, and from their profusion
on the clover they may well be charged
with injecting the cotton. The
remedy is evident as in the case of the
cotton itself-invigorate the clover on
these lands in the same way. Clover
is greedy consumer Of potash and
lime, and if these sandy lands ore
lined, and we'll supplied with potassiC
fertilizers, clover would find better
conditions, grow more vigorously and
be less infected with insects and hence
not liable to damage the cotton any
more than on the clay laGds.-W. f.
Massey, of n. o. Experiment Station