The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1911-01-19
Conditions Favoring Cotton
Growing.

that has been the rule for many
wears. 1t is evident to the careful
observer that 1t may be grown with
profit even yet, if treated as sur
plus crop, by complying with Ger
tain conditions. One of the first
conditions is that the cotton farm
er shall have confidence in his
ability to grow cotton. If he lacks
that confidence, and if 1t can not
be inspired in him by common
sense reasoning, and by the results
others have obtained under condi4
tions more or less similar, he
would better get out of the game
and grow something else. The
tremendous failure of many farm
ers IN Southwest Mississippi has
SO paralyzed them that they will,
in many instances, not listen to
reason calculated to inspire conf
dence. My attitude toward these
is that they would do better not to
plant cotton at all. Most of them
have already turned their attention
to some other crop or products de-
signed to take the place of cotton,
and they are as rule IN better
shape to do without cotton as a
money crop than they were a year
ago. But there are many who
either cannot or will not grow any
other money crop than cotton. 1t
is to this class that I am specially
directing this article.
There were a combi nation OF
causes, entirely aside from the
weevil, responsible for large part
of the shortage in the last years
cotton crop. To begin with, a late
crop is never maximum crop.
The freeze of April 25th, made
the whole crop May cotton, an av-
erage of len days late to begin
with. The wet spell beginning
June goth and continuing for a
month, caused a great deal of the
bottom crop that would have been
ahead of the weevil to shed. The
effects of the wet spell did not stop
there; the crop got badly in the
grass and certainly lost another
ten days, thus making the entire
crop twenty days late on an aver
age. Any practical cotton farmer
knows that under favorable condl
tions from one-half to three-fourth'
of cotton crop may set on the
stalks in twenty days, and all ou1
experience with the weevil teaches
us that if we make a profitable
crop of cotton we must "beat thu
weevil to it." So our crop aver
aging twenty days late had yer.
little chance, because by the tim
the cotton began to fill up rapidl'
with forms the third generation Q
weevils was on us in counties
numbers. The wonder to me
that any cotton at all was mad
under these conditions, and yet
knew men in this section who mad
one-half bale per acre and more O
considerable acreage. Thei
names and what they made l wi
give in a later article. Now, it
extremely unlikely that the combi
nation of causes that made the cot
ton crop of 1910 twenty days lat
will prevail in 1917. Therefor
with the same number of weevil:
and conditions Identical except tn
season, which by the law of Proba
bilities is apt to be normal thl
year, it stands to reason that th
same acreage would produce muc
more cotton this year than lai
year.
But I propose to show by rea
ons that are sound, even if ha
only theoretical knowledge
boll-weevlls, that the over-wintere
weeyils will be far less numero'
this year than last year. The e.
perience of people west Of US shoV
that after three years of serlo1
damage, which we have alreat
had, that with a normal seasC
cotton is grown, as surplus Gro
prohtably whether anything specl
is done in the way Of fighting wee
lis or not. The reason for this
simple; the Almighty in His W
dom creates natural enemies
- 1:xv1c The Il,