COTTON PRODUCTION 199 



Most of the crop is planted in April. Where boll weevils are present, 

 planting should be made as soon as the danger from frost is past. 



The seeds are sown or dropped in a shallow furrow and covered one or 

 two inches deep in soil. If the soil is dry the seed should be planted deeper 

 and the soil slightly packed on the seed. When the seed is drilled, one-half 

 to one bushel of seed is required to plant an acre; when planted in hills, 

 one or two pecks are required. If the land is rough, the planting should be 

 thicker to secure a stand without replanting. 



Tillage. — Prompt germination is desirable. If a rain packs the surface 

 or a crust forms before the seed comes up, the surface should be stirred with 

 a spike-tooth harrow or weeder to help the young plants to break through 

 the crust. The harrow or weeder may be drawn across the rows after the 

 plants come up to destroy small weeds and to cultivate the cotton plants. 

 When the cotton begins to show its true leaves, it should be cultivated with 

 a scrape or turner, which leaves the plants on a narrow ridge. The cotton 

 is then thinned to one plant in a hill about one foot apart on poor land and 

 about one and one-half to two feet apart on fertile land. Soon after 

 thinning a little soil should be pushed up round the young plants. This 

 may be done with a small scrape, sweep or spring-tooth cultivator. 



Flat, shallow, frequent cultivation should be given the growing crop 

 until about the first j)f August, when it may cease, unless the crop is very 

 late. 



HARVESTING AND MARKETING 



Picking. — Cotton is picked by hand. A picker hangs a bag over his 

 shoulder, picks the cotton out of the open bolls and drops it in his bag. 

 He picks 150 to 200 pounds seed cotton a day and receives from forty to 

 seventy-five cents per hundred pounds. 



Picking begins in the latter part of August or early in September and 

 ends about the first of December. When labor is scarce, the time of harvest 

 may be prolonged until midwinter. Cotton should be picked out as fast 

 as it opens to prevent damage from storms or rotting of fiber. 



Picking is an expensive operation because it has to be done by hand. 

 However, it does not require much skill and much of it is done by the cheap- 

 est of labor — women and children. Many cotton picking machines have 

 been invented, but none of them have proven successful. They damage the 

 plant and gather much trash with the cotton. 



Cotton should not be picked when it is wet, nor should locks fallen 

 on the ground and badly stained be picked up and mixed with the white 

 cotton. The damaged cotton should be placed in a separate bale. If 

 cotton is picked when it is slightly wet, it should be dried before ginning, 

 as damp cotton cannot be ginned without injury to the fiber. 



Ginning. — When 1200 or 1500 pounds of seed cotton have been picked, 

 it is usually hauled to a public ginnery. A suction pipe draws the seed 

 cotton into a screen where a great deal of the dirt and trash is blown out, 

 and then drops it into a feeder. The feeder picks up locks or small wads 



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