CHAMBERS' PREMIUM ESSAY. 17 



hoes, and in all lands at all tenacious or hard, let the work be 

 deep and close again, and the middles of the row also be well 

 broken up at this time. Now the hoes have an important 

 and delicate duty to perform. The cotton is to be reduced 

 nearly to a stand, though it is now rather early to be fully 

 reduced. It is perhaps best to leave two stalks where one is 

 intended to grow. The young stalk is very tender, and 

 easily injured, by bruises and skins from rough and careless 

 work, and it is much better to aid a little sometimes with the 

 hand in thinning, than to spoil a good stand, by bruises from 

 the hoc. The cut-worm and the louse are charged with many 

 sins, which ought to be put down to the account of careless 

 working, at this critical stage of the crop. The distance to 

 be given I have before stated, and in the first operation of 

 bunching, this ought to be looked to, and the spaces regulated 

 accordingly. At this second passing over, the hoes must re- 

 turn a little soft dirt to the foot of the stalk, leaving it clean 

 and supported. If this work is well done, the weed will grow 

 on, without any necessity for further attention for some 

 twenty days or three weeks, when the plough should return 

 again. At this time, some plough should be used next the cot- 

 ton, which will tumble the soft earth about the root, covering 

 the small young grass, which may have sprung up since the 

 last working, but the ploughing should be less close, and shal- 

 lower, than at the former working. The hoes have much to 

 do in the culture of this crop, arid must be prepared to devote 

 pretty much all their time to it, constantly passing over, and 

 perfecting that which cannot be done with the ploughs, by 

 thinning out surplus stalks, cleaning away remaining bunches 

 of grass, stirring about the roots of the plant, and if need be, 

 adding a little earth to them. It is difficult, in a treatise of 

 this sort, to say how often, and in what manner, this crop 

 shall always be worked, when the character of the seasons, and 



