158 
COTTON 
investigators. He is successful, of course. He 
follows modern methods, and reads about and 
studies his business. 
AT CHOPPING TIME 
The imperfect method of planting cotton makes 
work with the hoe necessary in order to secure a 
proper stand and correct the excessively large 
number of plants to the acre. The present-day 
planter drops seed in a continuous chain, using 
from ten to fifteen times as many seeds as are 
needed. To get rid of these extra plants and so to 
thin them in the row that the desired number only 
shall be left, calls for the practice of " chopping. " 
As young cotton plants slowly come out of their 
beds in the ground and raise their little bodies 
into air and sunlight, the laborer comes into the 
field "to chop" the cotton and arrange it in an 
orderly manner for the growing campaign now 
before it. 
As a rule now, all planters chop their cotton, but 
when a more perfect planter comes this will not be 
so necessary. A few good farmers, even now are 
depending less on the hoe and more on the weeder 
and harrow for this work. Either one or both of 
these tools when run a couple of times crosswise 
across the rows do rather effective work in thin- 
ning the crop ; and at the same time the practice 
warms the soil, mellows the surface, destroys weeds 
and grass, and puts the land into good physical 
condition for the growing crop. 
The first step in cotton culture then is this early 
work with the weeder, or peg-tooth harrow. It is, 
in fact, the most important ever made, surpassing 
in value all subsequent workings. 
