396 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



is unusually dry at the time of late planting, the seed will sometimes remain in the ground 

 three or four weeks before starting, and when a rain comes will soon make a good stand. 



The first cultivation should be given when the plants are well out of the ground, in 

 order to check the growth of grass and weeds. The soil should also be kept light and 

 mellow, which greatly facilitates the growth of the plants. The implements formerly used 

 for this purpose, and at present to a certain extent, are the hand-hoe, sweep, harrow, plow, 

 etc. In many sections, better implements, such as the horse-hoe and different varieties of 

 cultivators, are being used quite extensively. 



The Deere Spring Cultivator with cotton-scraper blades, manufactured by Deere, Mansur 

 & Co., St. Louis, Mo., is said to be a valuable implement in the saving of labor and the 

 thoroughness with which it does the work. Many of the cotton-plows are also very valuable 

 for this purpose. 



When the plant has attained its third or fourth leaf, the thinning process is performed, 

 together with the use of the hoe or cultivator. This should be done with care, the finest 

 plants to be saved and the surplus ones removed. The distance apart at which the plants are 

 thinned varies with the nature of the soil; rich lands requiring that the distance be greater 

 than those of less fertility. In soils of medium fertility, the distance is from eighteen to 

 twenty-four inches apart, three or four plants being left in a hill at the first thinning, which 

 number is generally reduced, in after-cultivation, to one or two. After the thinning process, 

 the fresh earth should be drawn around the roots of the young plants for support, and all 

 weeds and grass kept carefully excluded from the hills. The after-culture should always be 

 shallow, to prevent injury to the roots, especially in the use of the plow. The hand-hoe may 

 be necessary in removing weeds growing quite near the plants or between the hills, but much 

 of the labor of after-culture may be performed by other farm implements suited to the pur 

 pose, and involving less labor. 



Plowing is frequently beneficial in hastening the growth and maturity of the plants. 

 Care should be used, however, not to bruise or cut them, as they are very tender, and any 

 such injury will affect their productiveness. The after-cultivation should be sufficiently 

 frequent to exclude the grass and weeds, and keep the surface light and porous. Good 

 culture is one of the great essentials in the cultivation of cotton, and a frequent stirring of 

 the soil is necessary in order to keep out the weeds and permit the entrance of a sufficient 

 amount of air and moisture. 



The use of the sulky plows and cultivators, together with other improved agricultural 

 implements, wherever introduced, have been of immense advantage to the planter in the 

 cultivation of this product, not only in the saving of labor, but in securing better cultivation, 

 and consequently larger crops and profits. 



Harvesting. Cotton generally grows in this country to the height of from two to 

 four feet, different varieties varying somewhat in this respect. The height it attains is also 

 largely modified by the quality of the soil, the richest soils producing the most luxuriant 

 growths. Unlike corn and other farm crops, cotton, being a perennial, which in some parts 

 of the tropics becomes a small tree, continues to bud and blossom continuously, thus producing 

 new flowers and fruit until the plant is killed by frost. In this country it is killed by the 

 frost each winter, and its cultivation for a long period has fixed a tendency in the plant to 

 produce lint and seeds, rather than wood. This habit of continued blossoming and ripening 

 of its bolls until the black frost coni(*s, necessitates several pickings or gatherings of the crop 

 during the season. The plant generally opens its first blossoms from the middle of May to 

 the first of June, according to the time of planting, the season, etc. The bolls turn brown 

 and open in from four to six weeks after the flowers appear. Some planters have their fields 

 picked regularly four or five times during the season, others but once or twice. The most 

 energetic and systematic growers usually have the crop gathered as often as a sufficient 



