The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1905-04-29
FARMER ANDPLANTER.
COTTON GROWING.
some of the Requisites For q Good
Crop and Some OF the Rules
to BE Observed.

hard, tight or Sun-cracked SOILS OF
Texas when well drained, stand in the
first best classes, and the most dam
gerous the soft, sandy, fiat, piney
woods and low sandy creek. bottom
soil-the more density the timber sur
roundings the more so. The second
requisite is that the land shall be
thoroughly broken and conditioned
for planting in the winter time. The
next and special requirement is that
the land must be naturally fertile
enough to make bale of cotton to the
acre under non-weevil conditions or
must be made so by the application OF
sufficient full standard commercial
cotton fertilizer which on our common
run OF cropped out cotton soils means
about 200 pounds to the acre and con-
tanning at least per cent. potash and
10 per cent. phosphoric acid. and on
very thin and poor soils an additional
amount of cotton seed meal OF about
500 to $50 pounds to the acre must be
added to the above to bring the soil
to the requisite fertility. In place OF
the meal well rotted cotton seed in
sufficient quantity will answer. The
next requirement of great Importance
is the kind of seed to USE Experience
here shows that Kings improved and
RusseIIs big boil prolific in the order
named answers satisfactorily. Plant as
| early as possible, bearing in mind that
tc hot
around April is early enough. After
cotton is up same must be cultivated
continuously till it opens.
Shallow cultivation with sweeps set
fiat as possible is best. II on account
of rainy weather it becomes necessary
to resort to turning plows to turn I'M
der weeds and grass, as soon as dead
pull down sides of rows with side bar
rows and resume fiat cultivation as be-
fore. When cotton is about ready to
chop out, those favoring poison should
now give it the first application of
Paris green and repeat every eight
days till about middle of July, by
which time, If you have followed the
suggestions herein, you should have a
reasonable crop of bolls secure. II you
are against the poison, after you have
chopped out your cotton, you should
hand-pick the weevils out of the buds
of your bottom plants every few days,
until the squares begin to fall, which
you should then pick and burn all fall
en- and flared squares by hand every
few days until their fall becomes so
great it will be matter of further i'm
possibility. Thereafter rely on thor
ough and continuous cultivation. This
may sound like too much work, but 1t
is really only about half what those
fellows who have jumped from their
little farms to the sawnilIs have to I'M
dergo- If you think put too much
stress on the matter, ask those fellows
and find out. You will find the weevils
in the buds Of the young plant by the
time it begins forming leaves and they
live in those buds by seeding there I'M
til the square forms, when they also
then viciously attack the blooms and
young hollis as they appear. They,
however, feed in the buds of the cot
ton the season through, which anyone
may verify by watching closely and it
is reasonable then the fewer buds on
the plants the more weevils can be
killed by the application of dry poison.
Hence while the cotton is young is
the bess time to apply the poison for
the greatest results. Another thing the
alternating weevil comes into the cot
| ton fields continuously over a period
of about two months, and therefore
only few, comparatively, can be
caught by one hand picking, or by one
| application of poison and the necessity
of repeating same again and again.
Again, the weather conditions do not
at times permit of applications Of
| poison, but the weevil Is coming all
the time and the work of destruction
must go on, hence the necessity of
combining the methods and giving the
weeyils hot time continuously till
you secure a reasonable crop of bolls
! In planting the crop it must be well
distanced apart, both as to row and
drill. The plant must have the benefit
of all sunshine and all possible care.
The rule to observe is this: Know
| ing the size cotton weed your land
grows, put your rows such a distance
apart and your plants such distance
apart in the drill that when grown the
sunshine will reach to the ground. Bear
| in mind it Is not what we would like
| to do so much as il is the results can
be had under present conditions. On
these considerations we have to part
with a good many Of the approved
practices of our daddies. The conclu-
SIGN of the whole matter is this: 1t
| takes the proper kind of we1l-drained
soils, fertilization and the practice of
| the best cultural methods known to
| grow cotton, that cotton with us must
| under these conditions. be grown as a
surplus crop until a much wider spread
| of the boil weevil forever puts il out
| of the power Of the south to grow in
| any one season crop greater than the
| worlds requirements. and that time is
| probably some years OF yet; that Tex
as contains outside the districts of
! heavy rainfall immense areas Of land
which for peculiar reasons will al
ways enable her to hold the monopoly
of the cotton growing business in spite