22 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



early enough at any time, even for this year, when, it will be 

 borne in mind, the fruit trees were quite green at that time ; 

 to plant as early as the 15th or 20th of March is " very early." 

 We generally judge it to be time to plant corn when the 

 "leaf of the oak is as large as the squirrel's ear;" many of 

 our planters have planted cotton as early. We think cotton 

 planted from the 1st to the 10th of April is early enough for 

 old land, and have known by several crops that the later 

 planting, say 10th, was considerably better than the early 

 we know this not only by our own weights and measures, but 

 also by others. 



We would make an exception to early planting. New 

 ground and rich fresh land, has such a tendency to make 

 weed, that it is necessary to plant as early as a stand can be 

 had so all think ; we would not object, but think that 

 judicious culture would make a different result. We would 

 act precisely as with the tree that produced wood instead of 

 fruit amputate the roots. We think that if the land has 

 been broken up very early, and left to be consolidated by 

 rains, then planted about the 5th to the 10th of April, thinned 

 out as early as it was up, cultivate deep and late, that the 

 stalks would set the fruit and ripen in time. Do we not thus 

 with fruit trees, Irish potatoes, and sweet potatoes the lat- 

 ter two, by either cutting off tops, or feeding with calves ? 

 And why not a similar practice with the cotton plant ? 



The cotton plant is a very tender plant if treated as it was 

 some ten or fifteen years since some three to six bushels of 

 seed sown per acre, and not thinned out until the third leaf 

 had appeared. It has been raised in a hot-bed, and no won- 

 der it is tender ; biit if sown thinly, and then thinned out to 

 single stalks, we think it a hardy plant. There is no use in 

 trying the hardihood of the plant. It is unlike corn it has 

 a tap root, grows in dry weather, and unless the land has 



