CULTIVATION OF THE CROP. 37 



all the year ? And if there is a chance for water to pass off, 

 will it not be fit to work after a rain, sooner than any part of 

 the garden ? And must it not, of necessity, produce better ? 



I admit a planter cannot plant so great a crop, but he will 

 need much less to make an equal crop. 



The misfortune is, the body of the cotton planters want a 

 large crop, and will not be at the expense of team and tools. 

 Would they not ridicule the carpenter who, instead of getting 

 .tools to tongue and groove his flooring, would attempt to rabit 

 each side of plank, or to dig grooves, and then dig for a tongue 

 with a chisel ? And yet, though not quite so absurd, planters 

 act. What difference in cost, in twenty years, if a planter 

 buys six shovels, six one-horse turning-ploughs, three two- 

 horse turning-ploughs, six scrapers, six harrows, or to buy all 

 turn-ploughs ? These same ploughs will last by changing 

 those not used to be taken care of as long as the same 

 number of one kind, and for all work. Think ye, and judge 



3. Cultivation of the Crop. 



MR. EDITOR : I have seen cotton cultivated these thirty 

 or more years ; I have read pretty much all that has been 

 written upon the subject since 1819, and I have tried many 

 experiments. So far, I know no better way to proceed in the 

 culture than the plan I now pursue, and is pursued generally 

 in this section. Who deserves the credit for the plan, I know 

 not ; nor do I know from whence it came. To cultivate a full 

 crop, we must rely on the plough ; if we use ploughs adapted 

 to the work, I can see no objection. And, as to scraping 

 cotton, the best planters of this part of Mississippi not only do 

 it, but they are falling into the plan of even scraping corn. 



