All later cultivation should be made with such implements as the one or two-horse cultivators, disk harrows and heel sweeps. A turning plow is out of place in a cotton field unless the soil is devoid of vegetable matter and runs together after heavy rains or unless it rains for two or three weeks and it becomes necessary to plow under the grass. If the soil packs after heavy rains, it may be advisable to use the turning plow as a necessary evil, especially, when the cotton is young. If it should be necessary to use it to loosen the soil or to clean out the crop, by all means avoid deep cultivation late in the season. Be sure to use the harrow or cultivator a few days after using the turning plow to thoroughly pulverize the stirred soil and make a dust mulch.
The upper illustration shows a cotton field planted late and yielding nothing.
The lower illustration shows a field on the opposite side of the turnrow on same plantation,
planted early, properly treated, and yielding three-quarters bale per acre.
(Houter, Yearbook, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1906.)
The essential thing in the cultivation of the cotton is to keep the ground free from grass and weeds and covered with a soil mulch. Frequent and shallow cultivation should be continued until the cotton begins to open. Most of the benefits of thorough preparation, early, rapid-fruiting seed, early planting and intensive, shallow cultivation may be lost unless the fields are given the utmost attention until the cotton begins to open. Frequent and shallow cultivation late in the season will not result in the death of many adult weevils, but it will knock many punctured squares to the hot ground and cause the cotton to remain green and continue to grow and put on squares to furnish food for the boll weevil. The boll weevil prefers squares to bolls and as long as the cotton puts on sufficient squares to furnish it with the necessary food it will not attack many bolls.
Avoid deep cultivation late in the season, especially close to the cotton. If the plows cut the roots and cause the cotton to cease to put on squares the weevil will at once attack the bolls, which would otherwise not be injured.
More and better corn must be grown in weevil territory.
Above corn grown on I H C farm, Brookhaven, Miss.