Cultivation.—Owing to the variable weather conditions, the subsequent cultivation can not follow any specific methods. How ever, it is very important to culti vate the crop thoroughly and rapidly, thus giving the plants an opportunity to make a steady and vigorous growth from the time of germi nation through out the growing season. In cul tivation, sweeps (Fig. 358) are ordinarily used, which break the ground to a depth of about two inches, leaving a loose soil mulch over the sur face. If this is done thoroughly and as soon as possible after each heavy rain, surface evaporation 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 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 bulk. 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 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 part their lodging places and food supplies. A thorough dusting with Paris green will control the webworms and cotton-square borers. Plant-lice are destroyed by plowing under their host plants in late fall or winter. When it becomes necessary to take some other course, spraying with whale oil soap, kerosene emulsion or tobacco solution is effective. Cutworms are controlled by placing about the fields bunches of grass or weeds im mersed in Paris green. The better method, how ever, is to kill them by thorough winter cultiva tion, and keeping down all vegetation in the early spring.