

FARMERS' REGISTER. 



409 



CULTIVATION OF COTTON ON THE PRAIRIE 

 LANDS. 



To the Editor or tlie Farmers' Register. 



I think I closed my last letter to you, with urging 

 the necessity oi* listing the lands intended for cot- 

 ton the ensuing year. By that thrifty process all 

 the stalks of cotton and corn, and all the offal of 

 them, are placed in a deep furrow immediately 

 under the crop to be grown. A plantation so pre- 

 pared possesses these advantages: — All thai grew 

 on the land, and all its rubbish are placed 

 the reach of impeding either hoe or plough in the 

 working of the crop, and in such a position about 

 the roots of the growing plant, that it receives all 

 the benefit of the manure, and it gives a depth of 

 soil immediately under the plant, that oo 

 make it bear a drought well. It has another ad- 

 vantage: you can plough up and make your beds 

 in any part of the field that your land may be in 

 order, and the rows will ail fit to each other when 

 the whole aredone. There is yet perhaps, another 

 advantage, though I do not speak of it with con- 

 fidence — it is, in a great measure, a remedy for 

 the rust. The rust is a disease that is incr 

 and has done more injury than any one disease. 

 I will mention three experiments I "have made. 

 In 1833, on such parts of the prairie as I suspected 

 rust, 1 manured with cotton seed, and its effect 

 was only to postpone the time of rusting. Think- 

 in" that the quantity used was too little, and its 

 effects too soon govie, I manured the same ground 

 more heavily in 1834, and it did not rust." This 

 year the same lands have been manured again, 

 and parts of the same with stable yard manure, 

 and so far, there is no appearance of rust. I think 

 stable yard and cow-pen manure on cotton, bet- 

 ter than cotton seed, so far as a short exp 

 has gone. So 1 think cofon seed is a better ma- 

 nure tor corn. The reason for that fact will be 

 found in the nature of the plant, and the manner 

 of the action of the manure. Cottonseed is the 

 most powerful in its action, and the quickest over 

 in its effects. Corn is rapid in perfecting its grain, 

 so soon as the bearing stage commences — which 

 is at the time it commences to shoot and tassel. 

 From that time, in one month the grain is ripe, 

 and the manure no longer of use to if. Cotton 

 seed is so short lived in its effects, that if it be rot- 

 ten at the time the corn is planted, it will expend 

 itself in giving growth to the stalk, and will he ex- 

 hausted before earing. To make it suit the earing 

 time, the seed should be killed after the corn is 

 planted. I know this fact from so many trials that 

 I am sure of it. It is very different with cotton; 

 that bears fruit from the middle of June till host 

 arrests it, and those, manures suit it best, which are 

 more slow and more continued in giving off their 

 effects, which I believe to be the case with farm- 

 pen manures, and which I know is not the case 

 with cotton .seed in the small quantities in which it 

 is generally used. 



On your listed lands you should s< 

 manures after it has been lapped with the plough, 

 and when it is ploughed inl i manure will 



be generally mixed and incorporated with the 

 earth in and about the centre of the beds. I think 

 it too low when scattered in the furrow before lay- 

 ing the cotton or corn stalks, and also too low 

 when on them before they are lapped. I think 

 light manures will not sink into the earth, but will 



Vol. Ill— 52 



rise; and indeed that they arc subject, like every 

 thing else, to that law of nature which makes 

 what is heaviest go down, and what is lightest, 

 come up. You may scatter your manure in a 

 trench in the tops oi' the beds after they are made 

 up, but it will not be at so convenient a time, as to 

 work, as before they are ploughed into beds, and 

 it will be more apt to get within the influence of 

 the evaporation of our powerful sun. 



Your fields are now all listed; all that grew on 

 them the preceding year has been turned under 

 the earth, in the most suitable situation to secure 

 it from evaporation, and for its beneficial effect on 

 the intended crop. It is all rotting and becoming 

 manure for you, while the winter's hosts are acting 

 with more effect on the soil Jsared of its covering, 

 and is ameliorating and improving it. Your 

 next step, and that on which your success more 

 depends than on any other, will be to throw your 

 fields into beds so as to dry and to warm them. 

 This can be well done by the mould-board plough, 

 by breaking up your two first furrows deep and 

 close upon ihe list, and by opening a deep furrow 

 with a shovel plough in the centre of the old bed, 

 now to be the new alley. This will generally give 

 you ail the height of bed wanted, with a little 

 use of the hoe in drawing up in the lowest and 

 wettest places. If your lands are very rolling, they 

 may be dry enough without a bed, but there is no 

 one plantation that, lays so as to render them un- 

 necessary in every field. Warmth of soil comes 

 from drying, and drying comes from bedding. The 

 listing should be done in the winter as early as 

 your cotum is gathered, so that the prairie, natu- 

 rally too loose, should have time to consolidate 

 and become compact. The bedding you will 

 ever have time to do before spring. I an- 

 ticipate that some who have never tried listing and 

 bedding, may think that it will make the land 

 more liable to wash off. The prairies are very 

 light and loose, and will wash under any and every 

 circumstance I admit. The lands are equally 

 i wash when ploughed, and they are to 

 be. ploughed equally whether you bed or not. If 

 you intended to stop the wash in a small gulley in 

 any place, you would either fill it with cotton stalks 

 or bushes, and cover them — and this is what is 

 done by listing, and so as to make each row carry 

 its own water, and surely therefore you will not 

 charge as a cause of washing, the very means 

 you would use to prevent it. I have followed this 

 prurliec for twenty years without thinking it liable 

 to this objection — though my experience on the 

 prairie is too short to speak with the confidence of 

 knowing it. 



Your next step will be to plant. As to the 

 planting and covering, there are numerous ways, 

 and each having some reason for its preference in 

 Ihe nature of the soil and the situation of the land, 

 i be tedious to enumerate them. I should 

 open trenches on ihe prairies with an Indigo drill 

 or a ehortbull-tongue plough, and Bcatferthei e sd in 

 the trench, and cover with a board, long enough 

 to rest across two beds at a time, with shafts pin- 

 ned at right angles on this board, villi handles to 

 it like a The mule walks in the alley 



and covers two drills at a time, and covers from 25 

 to 30 acres a day. The board covers and presses 

 the earth down in the seed at the will of the 

 ploughman. Where the trees and stumps are nu- 

 -. a hand or two must follow and cover near 



