LIMITATIONS OF LATE PLANTING. 15 



considerable extent upon whether the plants are severely checked in 

 the early stages of devolopniont or make uninterrupted growth. 



LIMITATIONS OF LATE PLANTING. 



Tf whole communities could be organized so that all the cotton 

 could be i)lanted at the same time and all the plants destroyed in the 

 fall, so that none would survive the winter, later planting would 

 become more feasible than at present ; but other interests of the crop 

 forbid very late planting. 



In the northern districts of the cotton belt it is not safe to shorten 

 the season by deferred planting, and even in places where the season 

 is long enough the habits of the cotton plant set limits to late plant- 

 ing. If the weather is too hot during the early stages, the fertility 

 of the plants suffers through a change in the habits of growth. Fruit- 

 ing branches are not produced so near the ground as in earlier plant- 

 ings, but are replaced by more numerous upright vegetative branches. 

 With plenty of moisture such plants become large and bushy and 

 produce a late crop, at the mercy of the weevils. Or if dry weather 

 cuts off the supply of moisture the growth of the late plants is 

 checked before the fruiting stage is reached, so that little or no crop 

 can be set. 



Under conditions of drought, the tendency to excessive vegetative 

 growth of the young plants may be restricted by lack of water in the 

 surface soil. This is another reason why late plantings are more 

 likely to be successful in seasons w^hen the drought is severe enough to 

 check the multiplication of weevils. Thus at Palestine, Tex., in the 

 season of 1009, some fields of cotton planted in June, after the har- 

 vesting of a crop of potatoes, developed normally and gave larger 

 yields than neighboring fields planted much earlier, in April or May. 

 In a wet season such late plantings might be a complete failure. 

 The fruiting stage would probably not be reached until the weevils 

 had time to multiply and destroy the whole crop. 



Varieties differ in the readiness with which their characters are 

 changed in response to differences of cultural conditions, some being- 

 more suitable for late planting than others. The tendency to deferred 

 fruiting and to the production of excessive numbers of vegetative 

 branches is still stronger in the Egyptian cotton than in the Upland 

 series of varieties. Early planting of Egyptian cotton has been 

 found necessary in Arizona as a means of controlling the growth of 

 the plants, though no weevils exist. 



Planting too late also interferes with the early destruction of the 

 stalks, a most desirable measure for reducing the number of weevils 

 that survive the winter. The earlier this work can be done the more 

 successful it is likely to be, for the principal object is to deprive the 



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