222 Effective Farming 



cut before they are stripped and topped. They are piled and 

 stripped, and topped later. After the leaves and tops are 

 stripped, the canes are hauled to the mills and their juice made 

 into sugar or sirup. 



128. Pests of sugar-cane. Only a few insects and diseases 

 attack the sugar-cane. 



Cane-borer. The chief insect enemy of sugar-cane in Louis- 

 iana is the cane-borer. This borer is the larva of a moth and 

 injures the cane by boring into it. The remedy is to burn the 

 tops and the leaves of the cane as previously described. 



Root disease is sometimes troublesome in cane. It is caused 

 by a fungus that lives over from year to year in the soil or in 

 diseased plants. Burning the cane litter and planting canes 

 free from the disease are preventive measures. 



Red-cane. A discoloration of the interior of the stem occurs 

 if cuts and bruises are made on the outside. If injured canes 

 are planted, the disease may be harmful. 



COTTON 



129. The cotton plant. The fibers of cotton make a large 

 part of the thread and cloth used by mankind and, in addition, 

 the seeds are valuable in many ways. Cotton is grown in 

 warm climates. The southern part of the United States pro- 

 duces about three-fourths of the world's cotton crop. It is 

 also grown to a limited extent in southern California. India 

 and Egypt follow the United States with considerably smaller 

 productions. 



The plants vary in height from low-growing shrubs to trees 

 twenty feet high. In the South the commercial variety is the 

 product of plants averaging from two to six feet high. The 

 tree form grows only in tropical countries and is not commer- 

 cially important. In such regions the plant is a perennial, 

 but in this country it is grown as an annual. The plant has 

 an erect stem with several branches (Fig. 95). The root- 

 system consists of a tap-root with several branching roots 



