The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1907-05-25
FARMER AND
PLANTER
CULTiVATiNG COTTON.
What Fifteen Years Experience Has
Taught a Carolina Grower.

] speak from experience when I
say the poorest land in North Carolina
if undertake with clay, can in five or
six years be made to produce from six
to eight hundred pounds of lint cotton
per acre.
And the greater the yield the cheap
er the cost per pound, If the fertilizer
is used with discretion after consid-
ering the needs of the SOIL
Right here, too, let me say that II
the farmers would learn their needs
and mix the fertilizers accordingly,
they could save from one to three dol
lars an acre on commercial fertilizers
alone. Some soils need 4 per cent
potash while others will perhaps do
as we'll on three. Very few of the
guano factories put more than Q per
cent potash for cotton and about per
cent ammonia. This is enough ammo
M. the cotton follows a good pea
vine stubble, but IL it follows corn 1t
generally needs more ammonia.
have never cultivated a large area
In any one crop, as q 30-acre farm
will not admit much of any one crop,
but have experimental with nearly
all the field crops grown In Eastern
North Carolina, and especially with
poor land, for much of the 80 acres
would not make corn tassel thirty
years ago. but the few acres I cult
vate in cotton have averaged for the
past fifteen years over a 500-pound
bale to the acre, and this with an
average of not 500 pounds of ferti-
lizer per acre. With judicious fertiliz-
ing and cultivation we ought always
to get pound of lint cotton for every
pound OF fertilizer used. This might
be carried out perhaps ever up to
1000 or 1000 pounds. I have not
tested it above 800 pounds, but have
proved it good that far, and when
get more humus In the land, think I
will try it up to at least a thousand
pounds per acre.
1t seems useless, however, to fer
tilize to any extent without good prep
aration and cultivation-a soil broken
at least IL inches deep as fine as pos
sible, fertilizer only few inches deep
and well mixed with the soil, and
prefer to put all I'm going to use be-
fore / plant, for / have not found it
profitable to put on a side dressing
later. AS to distance, I prefer four
foot rows, and IS to 20 inches in the
rows. As to cultivation, sometimes
60 over my cotton every week, the first
time across the rows with harrow
or 1S-inch cotton pillow, leaving only
q small place to be worked by hoe, and
II preferred it may be cross-plowed
again.
The more rapid cultivation the SOON
er the cotton gets ahead of everything
else, and If, the work is done right no
harm is done to the plant. II good
plowman does his work right in the
cotton patch. fifty cents an acre will
DO sufficient for all the hoe work
needed any ordinary year; the later in
the year the lighter the work should
be and less frequent.
In many cases topping cotton proves
beneficial, especially If the growth is
good and 1t is done early in July.
There are so many varieties Of cot
ton and So great diversity of soil,
each Individual farmer can best as
certain from his own soil what variety
Is best suited to 1t. This can be done
only by tests which any intelligent
farmer can soon determine by trying.
Every farmer may greatly improve
his seed and yield by selecting from
the patch, first the best stalks, fruit
being the test, then from these select
stalks the very best bolls. With this
done from year to year, and with gen.
eral care and judgment exercised, we
might cultivate half the lands now cul-
tivated or 100000 acres In cotton
and get at least 10000 900 bales, which
will In few years be needed The
other lands now wasted in cotton could
be turned to good account In some
crop that hogs, sheep or cattle would
harvest at remunerative prices, thus
settling some important labor prob
Ion IT, H.. H.