The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1910-07-23
Save the Stand of Cotton.

call dJJeHIlOH TO one VI the ilOSL
common and inexcusable faults in
the cultivation of cotton | will
premise the remark, however, that
according to my experience there is
little danger of too frequently call
ing attention to a good thing, or of
warning against faulty practice.
The inquiry department shows that
large percentage Of its readers pay
very little attention to an answer to
an inquiry, or to information from
any source, unless the subject mat
ter is one that interests them at the
time. Very few subscribers take the
small trouble of filing away this or
any other page, or of clipping out an
article to which they may wish to
refer later on. I venture to say that
a particular article containing useful
information might be republished
once a week for a year and find new
readers every week to the very last
without including the thousands of
new subscribers that will have been
added to the mail lists during that
time. This is said in no spirit of
complaint. but merely as a passing
notice of the common American habit
of hurried and careless reading.
OF course the caption of this article
"gave me away" in advance as to
what I am about to discuss.
Every farmer appreciates the i'm
portance of securing a good stand at
the outset, whether he makes the
proper effort to do so or not. But
very many seem to conclude that they
have done their duty when the land
has been properly prepared and
planted with sound seed. and do not
appear to appreciate the equal i'm
portance of having a stand after once
securing it. At least. it looks so to
one who may walk across a field of
young cotton plants when the oper-
ations of blowing and hoeing (chop-
ping out and thinning) are going on.
I have seen a plowman, and so have
you, farmer reader, many a time
cover up the young plants for three
feet or more, and if he notices it at
all he shows it only by a passing eff
fort to kick off the earth covering.
The IMAM with the hoe" is often no
better and may be worse as a de-
stroyer of stand of cotton Cor very
small corn). Indeed it is probable
that the hoe man is the guiltier of
the two.
Now it ought to go without saying
that a full crop of cotton, or full
yield of corn, cannot be secured at
harvest unless an approximately full
stand of plants be first secured and
then maintained throughout the sea-
son. If an acre of land will make
maximum yield when the plants stand
one in place every twenty-fcur
inches, it is certain-absolutely GER
tain--that the same acre cannot pro-
duce such maximum yield II there
are any missing hills or plants. Does
anybody dispute that proposition?
OF course it is palpable that the
greater the number of such skiDs the
smaller the final crop yield will be.
I want to say-and / have observed
closely and counted much for more
than fifty years-that I have never
seen a perfect stand of cotton-not
a missing hill-or so much as one
acre. If there is man who has ever
seen such a phenomenon and is will
ing to swear Cor affirm it let him
now speak.
An absolutely perfect stand of cot
ton, eighteen inches part in four-foot
rows, would mean 1850 plants on one
acre. Has anyone ever seen such a
stand. 1t will not do to count double
where two stalks have been left in a
hill in the effort to make up the
count and show that the acre contains
1860 plants. Even if the two stalks
adjacent to a missing place could
make up for the missing plant in the
final yield (Which they will not, the
fact will appear that most of the two
plant hills are not adjacent to a miss
ing space.
So far from ever having seen a
perfect stand it would not be bad
miss to say that there are few fields
of cotton on which, one year with
another any better than seventy-five
per cent. of full or perfect stand
will be found when the cotton COM
mences to open. Many and many a
field will not show better than half
a stand if tried by the rule of dis
lance determined upon before COM
mencing to put it to a stand If any
one doubts what I say, let him verify
it next fall about the commencement
of cotton picking.
In some fields he will find many
stretches of rows in which the full