COTTON CULTUEE. 25 



It may be here remarked that rapid movement, and a 

 handling which is brisk, rather than dainty and particular, 

 is the best on most soils. It will not do to linger. While 

 you are bestowing abundant care upon one side of your 

 field, the other side may suffer a set-back from which it 

 will never entirely recover. It is now the first of May, 

 #nd you have been once over your crop, but there is no 

 time for pausing. While the hoe-gang are in their last 

 rows, let the plows go right back to the side where the 

 planting began, and start in for another working. This 

 time the dirt must be thrown up from the middles toward 

 the plants, yet not so as to choke them or bury the roots 

 too deeply. Let the hoes follow, cutting away all the 

 plants but two, the most thrifty of each clump, and throw- 

 ing a little soft, fresh earth around those that stand, and 

 destroying all the grass and weeds. This working should 

 be careful, the most so, in fact, of any which the crop re- 

 ceives. Very much, however, depends upon the season. 

 If, just at this time, say from the first to the twentieth of 

 May, there are frequent rains, followed by sultry weather, 

 the grass will grow apace, and the planter must use his 

 discretion as to what part of his farm may be suffering 

 most. 



His corn, too, needs attention about this time, but if he 

 must neglect one or the other, experience has shown that 

 corn is much the hardier of the two, at least in a struggle 

 with grass and weeds. Cotton is jealous and exacting in 

 its nature ; it must have attention, and dies for want of it ; 

 or, if the plant does not die amid the grass, it soon looks 

 yellow and sickly, and suffers a stunting which will abridge 

 its bearing time three weeks or a month. 



By the twentieth or twenty-fifth of May, the industrious 

 planter has probably been twice over his crop, and the 

 plants are thinned out to the final or permanent stand. 

 The rest is now comparatively easy. The plows must con- 

 tinue to run until the middles are all broken out ; but here 

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