COTTOX CULTTTBE. 



til all the middles are broken out and the manure 

 covered in. v| / 



This should be done a month before 

 from the first to the tenth of April, if the season^rs^, 

 ciently warm and dry, harrow the beds and mark not 

 the line of the rows, making them perfectly uniform and 

 straight, but by cross plowing lay off the distance of the 

 plants from each other in the drill. 



Probably with this high manuring, thirty or thirty-six 

 inches ought to be allowed. Plant by dropping three or 

 four seeds in the drill at the point indicated by the marker. 

 The best way of preparing seeds is to roll them in a mix- 

 ture of lime and ashes, with which a little guano has been 

 mixed, having soaked them previously in stable manure, 

 to which salt and water have been added. Treated thus, 

 germination will be almost certain and prompt. As soon 

 as the third leaf appears, go over the crop with the hoe, 

 for, with the thorough plowing and harrowing, very little 

 grass will have made its appearance in ten days. 



Select the thriftiest plant and destroy all the others, 

 thus thinning out to a stand at once, and leaving the fields 

 perfectly clean. In this way, all the vigor of the soil, and 

 the dressing which has been thus generously applied, is 

 concentrated upon the plants, and they may be expected 

 to thrive and grow very rapidly. 



The cultivation can be done almost entirely with the 

 plow and scraper after the second hoeing. Twice, at 

 least, before the plants attain their growth, the scraper 

 may be run each way ; and as there is entire uniformity 

 throughout the field, the rows being exactly five feet 

 apart, and the plants in the row precisely three feet asun- 

 der, there will be no difficulty in running the wing of the 

 scraper within two inches of the plant on all sides. 



After the first of June the limbs of the plants in the 

 rows will commence to interlock, so that the plows can be 

 run only between the beds, that is, in the five foot inter- 



