The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-10-15

NV Then from the full moon in
July to the full moon in August
PROFESSOR MASSEY go over your cotton and pinch
out the tops. and you will make lot more cotton
Plant your seed when the sign is in the twins and
you will have plenty of twin bolls. This shallow
cultivation may be all right when cotton gets
large enough to hold the dirt and ground-room
enough for it to grow. The first blowing OF cot
should be to bar it off close as possible to
let the sun down to the roots to make it grow
| have seen Blank, of South Carolina, bar his cot
ton off three times till the stalk was large as
your finger and then begin to throw the earth to
it, and he made from 200 to 800 bales of cotton"
Here we have the old way of human labor ap
piled to cotton. There is need for man get
ting in the grass if he goes over his cotton with
a smoothing harrow before it is up, and then
rapidly goes over with the weeder. He will then
have killed the grass before it gets chance TO
smother the cotton and will have done the work
three four times as fast as with shovel and
twister. Then, getting on two-horse cultivator,
he works both sides Of the row at once and never
thinks of barring off, for the modern cotton grow
er knows that this is of no use whatever. Then
the modern cultivator of cotton plants his seed
when he has made good seed bed and has land
in condition to make good crop, and does not
know nor where the sign is II he has seed
that has been bred to making twin bolls, he will
get them sign or no sign, for the signs OF the
Zodiac have no more to do with cotton than with
the hair on your head. He who has numbered
these gives the early and the latter rain, and the
man who cultivates his field in the best and most
economical way will make the most cotton
Now as to topping cotton, have never seen ali,
advantage in it. l may be wrong, for | have
tried it, and some who have, ind II help
But the time of the moon has nothing on earth
do with it. and it is time that intelligent peo-
pie should get rid of these old superstitons about
the moon and the sign. Men whom know are
making two bales of cotton acre are not using
the shovel and twister. but farming in good
rotation and getting their land rich and are max
ing cotton far ahead Of the moon-struck people
who follow the signs. and they making it far
Acheaper than these men.
On the other hand. farmer in Louisiana
writes: II raised according to the methods
advanced in your paper and it will make about
eighty bushels an acre. / also want to thank
you LOT teaching me to peavine hay. By
following your advice lost very few leaves. and
all the vines dried out without souring" No
moonology and no signs here, but good corn with
out 'twister" harrington, and good hay
without racks or stakes. The moon and the signs
evidently favor the man who prepares his land
and cultivates in the proper way, while the man
who pays attention more to the signs and the
moon than he does to the improvement of his
land and his seed will get little help from the
moon or the signs. The men who read The Pro
gressive Farmer and Gazette getting away
from these old nonsensical superstitons. They
know that II they do their part by the soil well
and cultivate the crop in the best and most rapid
and economical way. the moon the signs will
ever prevent their making good crops, for 1t II
the sunshine and the rains that make the crops
too, that II they SOW clean seed in clean soil the!
will never have any cheat In the crop of whea
and not the moon and the signs. They know