FOR BETTER CROPS IN THE SOUTH 39 



and after the plants come up also reduces the necessity for the 

 use of the expensive hoe to the minimum. 



All later cultivation should be made with such implements 

 as disk harrows, and two-horse cultivators and heel sweeps. A 

 turning plow is out of place in a cotton crop unless the soil is 

 devoid of vegetable matter and runs together after heavy rains 

 or unless it rains for two or three weeks and it becomes necessary 

 to bury grass. If the land is clear of roots and stumps we can 

 give a large angle to the disks on a disk harrow, straddle the 

 row and throw dirt toward or away from the cotton plants. One 

 man with two horses and a disk harrow can take a row at one 

 time and destroy the grass and weeds and make a fine soil mulch 

 out of the hardest, sun-baked soil. 



The latest reversible disk harrow is furnished with an exten- 

 sion which raises the harrow frame high enough so that cotton 

 grown on soil of average fertility can be entirely cultivated with 



The disk harrow preparing a cotton seed bed 



this implement. However, when it is absolutely necessary to 

 use the turning plow by all means avoid deep cultivation late in 

 the season, and be sure and use harrows or cultivators a few 

 days after using the turning plow to make the stirred soil 

 thoroughly fine and create a dust mulch. 



Cultivation with turning plows and one-horse cultivators is 

 too slow for the boll weevil territory and should not be practiced 

 unless the land is full of roots and stumps. Such a condition is 

 inexcusable for the reason that we can burn, dig, pull and blow 

 out the stumps in a few years. Spare time can be used to the 

 best advantage in getting out stumps and roots. This is an age 

 of labor-saving farm implements and no farmer can afford to 

 walk down each middle three or four times in cultivating his 

 crop. The boll weevil is one of the most energetic and destruc- 

 tive insects that the world has ever known, and usually com- 

 pletely destroys the slow farmers' crop. 



