COTTON 



COTTON 



251 



is reduced, and the bad effect of drought lessened ; 

 excessive capillary action near the surface is pre- 

 vented, and the plant-food in solution is thus kept 

 from being carried above the root zone and left by 

 evaporation at the surface, where it can be redis- 

 solved and washed away by the heavy rains ; a 

 better circulation of air in the interstices of the 

 soil is secured ; a larger proportion of the rainfall 



Fig. 359. A bale of cotton. Bales are of different sizes and 

 shapes, depending on the apparatus in which they are 

 pressed: but they usually weigh about 500 pounds. The 

 average yield is about one-third of a bale to the aero. A 

 good crop is one bale; an extra crop is a bale and a half. 



goes into the soil instead of running off, conse- 

 quently the loss of fertility by surface washing is 

 lessened, and the plants are thereby enabled to get 

 the maximum benefit of the plant-food and mois- 

 ture in the soil. 



Use of heavy seed for planting. — Recent experi- 

 ments by the writers demonstrate the value of sep- 

 arating cotton seed, and planting only the heaviest 

 grade. Plantings of heavy seed have given an 

 increase in yield of over 10 per cent more than 

 plantings of the same seed unseparated. Thor- 

 oughly practical machines and methods of separa- 

 tion have been devised, so that it is now possible 

 for every grower, to separate his planting seed at 

 very slight expense. Descriptions of the methods 

 and machines are given in recent publications of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture. 



Picking. 



Picking or gathering the cotton in the fields 

 is a heavy item of expense. In upland varieties it 

 amounts to thirty-five to seventy-five cents per hun- 

 dred pounds of seed cotton, and more for sea-island. 

 It must be picked by hand, as no mechanical appli- 

 ance for harvesting has yet been invented which 

 gives satisfactory results in practical working. 

 The amount of cotton that one person can pick in 

 a day varies from 100 to 500 pounds, depending 

 on the skill of the picker. One man can very 

 easily care for the cultivation of twenty acres of 

 cotton, but it requires two to four pickers to 

 harvest such a crop rapidly enough to prevent loss. 

 This extra labor in harvest time is usually supplied 

 by the wives and children of the laborers. The 

 harvest season extends over a period of about four 

 months, beginning August 15 to September 10, 

 according to the locality. 



The great desideratum of the cotton-grower of 

 today is a machine for picking or harvesting the 

 crop. Several machines now under trial, using the 

 principle of a spirally twisting steel picking fingers, 

 have proved promising in preliminary trials and it 

 seems very probable that a thoroughly satisfactory 

 picking machine will ultimately be secured. 



Ginning. 



Upland cotton is ginned (the lint or fiber taken off 

 the seeds) with saw-gins. Ginning outfits are estab- 

 lished all over the cotton-belt, where the .cotton is 

 ginned for the near-by growers. These outfits con- 

 sist of an elevator for sucking the cotton from the 

 wagons to the gin, a gin, or as a rule one to six gins, 

 and a press where the cotton is packed into bales. 

 (Fig. 359). A modern ginning outfit can gin and pack 

 thirty to forty bales per day. The operation usually 

 costs the grower a dollar to a dollar and a half per 

 bale. Saw-gins frequently cut and seriously injure 

 the fibers, and for this reason they are not used in 

 ginning sea-island cotton. A specially constructed 

 roller-gin is used for this purpose. However, it is 

 adapted only to ginning smooth>-seeded varieties; 

 therefore, it cannot be used for ginning the tufted- 

 seeded upland varieties. 



After ginning and baling, if the cotton is to 

 be shipped a very great distance, it is usually 

 recompressed into smaller bulki Cotton com- 

 press companies are located mainly in the larger 

 cities and usually handle enormous quantities of 

 cotton (Fig. 360). 



Insects and diseases. 



There are many insect pests which are a men- 

 ace to cotton-growers. Among those which do the 

 most serious damage are the red spiders, cater- 

 pillars, plant-lice, cutworms, cottonboll-worms and 

 Mexican cottonboll-weevils (Figs. 361-363). 



Cotton is also attacked by a large number of 

 diseases. The roots and stems of the plants are 

 frequently affected by root-knot, sore-shin, wilt, 

 and anthracnose of the stem. Among the diseases 



Fig. 360. Yard of a cotton compress (Shreveport, La.). 



of the leaves are rust, which is a common term 

 applied to a large number of diseases, angular 

 leaf-spot, leaf-blight and mildew. The bolls are 

 often seriously damaged by anthracnose, boll-rot 

 and shedding. 



Clean cultivation is an essential factor in hold- 

 ing in check many plant enemies, as it destroys in 



