H. G. Hastings & Co., Seedsmen, Atlanta, Georgia. 
THE STORY OF THE “THIEF" PLANTS 
The Plants That Steal the 
Three years ago we had the photographs shown below taken for 
the purpose of printing them in our spring catalogue. In no way 
can we drive home so well the story of the “thief” cotton plants 
that infest practically every cotton field in the South. They steal 
your money just as surely as does a pickpocket and they will do it 
just as long as you permit them to and no longer. 
Further, thief plants are not confined to the cotton fields. They 
are in the corn fields, the oat fields, the wheat fields and every 
Cotton Grower’s Money 
other kind of seed-bearing crop that is. grown. The average yield 
per acre of all crops is far too low. Poor cultivation, improper or 
insufiicient fertilizing is responsible for much of this low average, 
but the greatest cause of all is the number of “thief plants” in your 
and your neighbor’s fields. 
In our work on the Hastings Farm, including the seed or plant 
breeding, the growing of the seed, and the general farm crops we 
find many things of special interest and this story of the “thief 
plants” given below is one of them. 
It would take 30 acres or more like this to make one bale of cotton 
that take just as much land space, fertilizer and labor in cultiva^ 
tion as do the 20, 30, 40, 50 or more boll plants. -M 
You know this to be true by your own experience. If you are^ 
making a half bale per acre or less your fields are full of thesev 
‘thief plants” that are stealing your money. They are not paying^ 
for their “keep.” They are “loafing” on you just as much as one of 
your farm hands would that stopped work and slept up in the^- 
shade half the day. You would fire that farm hand in a hurry if* 
you caught him at it. Why don’t you fire these thief plants out of g 
your cotton fields? ^7 
Most people think that there is everything in a variety. Not true.*\ 
Our variety test work, our special selection and study of individual; 
or separate plants of the same variety shows us that there is US'" 
much difference between different plants of the same variety as^ 
there is between the president of a big city bank and the inmates 
of the county pauper farm. While there are few two boll plants,- 
there are hosts of 3 to 6 boll plants, none of which earn their board?? 
and keep on your farm. Fire them now. 
This plant is “making:” cotton at the rate of at least 3 bales per acre 
The two plants shown above were taken from a row in our vari- 
ety test grounds. They are of a much advertised variety, then and 
now, of small boiled early type. These two plants grew within six 
feet of each other in the same row. Same land, same distance apart, 
same fertilizing and cultivation. Why the remarkable difference in 
the yield ? One plant with over 60 bolls, making at the rate of two 
bales per acre or better, the other, so low in producing power that 
it would take nearly 20 acres of plants like that to make a bale. 
The plant on the left is a profitable paying plant, the one on the 
right a “thief plant” that steals the cotton grower’s money. 
The average yield of lint cotton per acre in the cotton States is 
about 190 pounds per acre. Making all allowances for the slovenly 
“nigger and mule” style of cultivation on so many of these acres 
yet this IS an alarmingly low average. It don’t pay 50 cents per 
day for the labor put on those acres. What makes this average 
yield so low? What makes your yield low? Simply because the 
fields are full of these “thief plants,” the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 boll plants 
