62 COTTON CULTURE. 



As soon as your cotton is planted, go over your corn 

 for the first time, and turn immediately back to the cotton 

 field to give it the first working. 



Try the Shanghai plow for the first working. Some 

 planters speak very highly of it. You may, perhaps, do 

 almost as well by taking out the three forward hoes of 

 your cultivator, and passing it along above the young 

 plants and astride of the row. 



Let the hoes follow the plows, cutting away two breadths 

 of a common hoe, thus leaving a clump of plants at inter- 

 vals of about a foot and a half. In some cases, where your 

 plants are vigorous, and the season pushes, it may do very 

 well to cut away to a stand at once, or, at least, so as to 

 leave but two thrifty plants in a place. At all events, 

 keep down the grass. If you have to go over your crop 

 once in a week, get the grass under now, and it will not 

 give you much trouble during the rest of the season. 



MAY. 



Another crowding month on a cotton farm. Both crops, 

 your corn and your cotton, demand attention, and neglect 

 now can never be made up. 



During the first half of May you will give the cotton its 

 most thorough working. Let the plows keep a brisk pace 

 if they have much ground to go over. They should go 

 around the first time moulding the rows, and be followed 

 close by the hoes, to uncover the plants that have been 

 buried by the plow running too near. Then the middles 

 should be broken out, and the crop left perfectly clean, 

 cut out to a permanent stand, and the ground all stirred. 



After running two furrows to each row, so the hoes can 

 go over the crop, it may be advisable to put the plows into 

 the corn field, and let them go through that before break- 

 ing out the middles of the cotton. Some time must be 

 found also for the potato patch. Work them clean and 



