The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1910-07-14

ing, but a good many of them, like our
selves are too careless to do it. Third:
they practice rapid, shallow cultivation
and they keep it up as late as possible
sometimes until the cotton begins to open
They cut the acreage about IS per cent
and some times increase that they can
more certainly cultiyatl il welt
Now, when they hEe don all these
things they are just gAingSready for
the fight with the wce~ii, ~aff Ranging the
skirnish lines, as it were. They keep
close lookout and if theyyfnd weevils
pretty numerous, they go over the cotton
and pick the weevils themselves about
the time the cotton is beginning to make
squares. That time is past us now, be-
cause tn ecotton is too sarge and the
| wesvils ere too hard to find. The next
thing to do is to go over the cotton every
four or FIVE days, gather up and burn all
squares that have fallen off. All the
squares may not have an egg or a larva
that makes a weevil but it is best to
| gather and burn all you see. You haven't
time to examine closely to see if the
fallen square is punctured. This gather
| ing and burning of the squares is not
a big a thing as you might think. Chill
| dren can do this work very rapidly. This
afternoon my three children went over
| AIS acres in about 4 hours and gathered
many hundred fallen squares.
| As rule the damage is not uniform
| all over the field and children will soon
learn the worst infested spots and the
rest of the field they can go over very
rapidly. This picking and burning OF
the squares is of the utmost importance
with us this year. / am certain that il
it is practiced generally over the county
| until say June 10th that the damage done
on this crop will not exceed IS per cent
One great advantage of the picking anc
burning of the squares is that it can be
done in wet weather, while trap furrowins
which the Texas people rely so much
on-can only be practiced in hot dry
| weather. Later in the season when th'
| punctured squares are too numerous t.
pick by hand trap-forrowing should b.
tried. 1t is dcne as following, viz: Rur
around the cotton tolerably close ane
shallow with an old short sweep. begin
ming early in the morning and continuing
until III o'clock. Go back about one
O'Clock with short shovel and large hee
sweep: attach a brush or stick to thu
single tree so it will hit every stalk o
cotton shaking off .weevils and pune
tured squares, which will roll down in tn
trap burrows; run the heel sweep shallow
and lightly cover weevils and square
with the hot dry dust. Many of the wee
wills and all the eggs and larvae will
be destroyed. Don't get discouraged i
the brush tears up your cotton consid
erably. That is not a circumstance n
what the weevils would do.
The early destruction of stalks in tn
fall is one of the things that is yer,
important. This should be done Ger
tainly by Nov Ist. and Oct. 18th shoul'
be better. Better to lose little cotton
than to furnish food and breeding ground
for thousands of weevils to eat up you
: cotton next year The Texas people
think turning cattle in on the fields
nearly as good as piling and bdrnini
the stalks if there is a sufficient humble
of cattle to eat the fields clean befor
frost They lay great stress en-, burnin
tnickets and turn rows and any kind, c
trash where weevils can hide for thei
long winter sleep, But this. should nc
be done till January Then you turl
t Mr.. WeeviI out of house and home
and if he is not destroyed he has nc
life enough left to hunt new quarters s.
: perishes before spring time.
: In conclusion | want to say that
: was optimistic all the time, but tina
since my trip to east Texas | am yer
much more so. Gotten is the best none
: crop in the world, and if we fail t
make it on account of the boil weevil
: will be our fault The people of cas-
Texas believe that the weevil has prove
; blessing to them. for all classes ar
: much better off financially than the
were before the weevil came.