342 



THE AGRICL'LTURAL NEWS. 



XOVEMUER 11, 1905. 



DESTRUCTION OF OLD COTTON PLANTS. 



It has been frequently urged in these columns 

 that the prospects of the Sea Island cotton industry in 

 the West Indies will be seriously injured if planters 

 fail to carry out the recommendations of the Imperial 

 Department of Agriculture to destroy old cotton 

 plants. With the view of again giving prominence to 

 this important matter, the following, which has been 

 issued in leaflet form by the Superintendent of Agri- 

 culture for the Leeward Islands, is reprinted : — 



In the pages of the Agricultural Novs, by addresses at 

 meetings, and liy the personal advice of officers of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, the attention of cotton planters lias been 

 repeatedly drawn to the danger of leaving old cotton bushes 

 on the land and of attempting to ratoon cotton b}' allowing 

 the bushes to remain from one season to another. 



The chief danger arising from this bad practice is that 

 •old cotton is usually attacked by various pests and diseases, 

 particularly the leaf-blister mite. This dangerous pest is in 

 this way spread to young cotton and may endanger the 

 success of the whole cotton crop. 



Every one is, therefore, most particularly urged to 

 destroy any old cotton bushes which may be on his land, and 

 also to destroy the young shoots which may spring up where 

 old cotton has been cut down, for these young shoots are 

 often badly diseased. The old cotton bushes should be care- 

 fully got up by the roots and burned. 



Owners of old cotton bushes should clearly recognize 

 that these old infected bushes are a source of danger to 

 themselves and their neighbours and should be public 

 spirited enough to destroy them even where they themselves 

 have no cotton of their own in the immediate neighbourhood. 



The principal risk which the cotton industry has to face 

 is danger arising from various pests ; if there is combined 

 effort to stamp out these pests a successful cotton industry 

 is possible, but negligence, even on the part of a few, may 

 imperil the whole industry and cause a commercial catastrophe 

 which may now be serious. The matter therefore calls for 

 energetic and public-spirited action. 



As bearing on this subject it may be of interest to 

 publish the following extract from an article in the 

 Tropical Agriculturist by Mr. E. Ernest Green, 

 Government Entomologist, Ceylon, wdiich shows that 

 there, also, it is found necessary to treat cotton strictly 

 as an annual, as the bolls are attacked by a small 

 worm : — 



As mentioned in my June notes, our experience in 

 Ceylon tends to show that it is the second crop from the 

 cotton bushes that is the most seriously affected. This being 

 so, we shall have to treat our cotton strictly as an annual, 



to be rooted out and burnt immediately after the harvesting 

 of the main crop. By these means we may hope to keep 

 the iiest under some control. 



The perennial habit of most of our Ceylon products and 

 the absence of any winter, during which insect life is 

 dormant, add very greatly to our ditticulties in the control 

 of insect pests. Where we have a ]ilant like cotton, that can 

 be grown as an annual, it would lie foolish to lose the 

 advantage afforded us and to allow successive croi)S to 

 straggle ou and overlap each other. I would even advocate 

 that something in the nature of a ' close season ' should be 

 recognized — regulated to suit the weather conditions in 

 different districts — during which no living cotton plants 

 should be allowed to remain in the ground. 



USES FOR SEA ISLAND COTTON. 



Reference has been made in these columns to the 

 steadily increasing demand for Sea Island cotton in 

 the United States. It has also been predicted that 

 the crop in the Sea Islands will be short this season. 

 Interest thei-efore attaches to the following note in the 

 Cotton Trade Journal, of Savannah, Georgia, on the 

 extended uses to which Sea Island cotton is being put: — 



The indications are that Sea Island cotton will be more 

 largely used during the coming season than ever before, not 

 that there is to be any unexpectedly unusual demand for it, but 

 because every year finds more uses for the staple. And once 

 Sea Island cotton is adopted for a particular purpose, it is 

 steadily used until a better product is found, which is seldom 

 the case. 



It will probably be some time before a better material 

 for mail bags, for instance, is found than Sea Island cotton, 

 wdiich was adopted some years ago after a number of severe 

 tests of all kinds of materials by the Government. Hence, 

 for this purpose, there is a fixed, assured demand for Sea 

 Island cotton. The Government must have the bags made 

 of such material as it specifies in its contracts. The same is 

 true of numerous other things for which Sea Island cotton is 

 used, and for which either rigid contracts or good policy 

 forbids substitutes. More than in any other stai)le, therefore, 

 is the demand for Sea Island probablj- fixed to an extent, and 

 cannot well go down-hill. 



As new uses are found for this cotton with the progres.? 

 of invention, the demand becomes the more stable, and 

 promises to remain around a certain, fixed, minimum recjuire- 

 ment. It is to be noted that more uses are being found for 

 Sea Island cotton in this country than abroad. This being 

 the case, and the fixed requirements being expected to 

 increase rather than decrease, it is likely the new season will 

 find many mills adopting this cotton for some use or other» 



