Part 18 (1/2)
FARM CROPS
Every crop of the farm has been changed and improved in many ways since its forefathers were wild plants. Those plants that best serve the needs of the farmer and of farm animals have undergone the most changes and have received also the greatest care and attention in their production and improvement.
While we have many different kinds of farm crops, the cultivated soil of the world is occupied by a very few. In our country the crop that is most valuable and that occupies the greatest land area is generally known as the _gra.s.s crop_. Included in the general term ”gra.s.s crop” are the gra.s.ses and clovers that are used for pasturage as well as for hay.
Next to gra.s.s in value come the great cereal, corn, and the most important fiber crop, cotton, closely followed by the great bread crop, wheat. Oats rank fifth in value, potatoes sixth, and tobacco seventh.
(These figures are for 1913.)
Success in growing any crop is largely due to the suitableness of soil and climate to that crop. When the planter selects both the most suitable soil and the most suitable climate for each crop, he gets not only the most bountiful yield from the crop but, in addition, he gets the most desirable quality of product. A little careful observation and study soon teach what kinds of soil produce crops of the highest excellence. This learned, the planter is able to grow in each field the several crops best adapted to that special type of soil. Thus we have tobacco soils, trucking soils, wheat and corn soils. Dairying can be most profitably followed in sections where crops like cowpeas, clover, alfalfa, and corn are peculiarly at home. No one should try to grow a new crop in his section until he has found out whether the crop which he wants to grow is adapted to his soil and his climate.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 182. ALFALFA IN THE STACK This is the second cutting of the season]
The figures below give the average amount of money made annually an acre on our chief crops:
Flowers and plants, $1911; nursery products, $261; onions, $140; sugar cane, $55; small fruits, $110; hops, $175; vegetables, $78; tobacco, $80; sweet potatoes, $55; hemp, $53; potatoes, $78; sugar beets, $54; sorghum cane, $22; cotton, $22; orchard fruits, $110; peanuts, $21; flax-seed, $14; cereals, $14; hay and forage, $11; castor beans, $6 (United States Census Report).
SECTION x.x.xV. COTTON
Although cotton was cultivated on the Eastern continent before America was discovered, this crop owes its present kingly place in the business world to the zeal and intelligence of its American growers. So great an influence does it wield in modern industrial life that it is often called King Cotton. Thousands upon thousands of people scan the newspapers each day to see what price its staple is bringing. From its bounty a vast army of toilers, who plant its seed, who pick its bolls, who gin its staple, who spin and weave its lint, who grind its seed, who refine its oil, draw daily bread. Does not its proper production deserve the best thought that can be given it?
In the cotton belt almost any well-drained soil will produce cotton. The following kinds of soil are admirably suited to this plant: red and gray loams with good clay subsoil; sandy soils over clay and sandstone and limestone; rich, well-drained bottom-lands. The safest soils are medium loams. Cotton land must always be well drained.
Cotton was originally a tropical plant, but, strange to say, it seems to thrive best in temperate zones. The cotton plant does best, according to Newman, in climates which have (1) six months of freedom from frost; (2) a moderate, well-distributed rainfall during the plant's growing period; and (3) abundant suns.h.i.+ne and little rain during the plant's maturing period.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 183. GROWTH OF COTTON FROM DAY TO DAY
In America the Southern states from Virginia to Texas have these climatic qualities, and it is in these states that the cotton industry has been developed until it is one of the giant industries of the world.
This development has been very rapid. As late as 1736 the cotton plant was grown as an ornamental flowering plant in many front yards; in 1911, 16,250,276 bales of cotton were grown in the South. In recent years the soil and climate of lower California and parts of Arizona and New Mexico have been found well adapted to cotton.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 184. COTTON IN THE GROWING SEASON]
There are a great many varieties of cotton. Two types are mainly grown by the practical American farmer. These are the short-stapled, upland variety most commonly grown in all the Southern states, and the beautiful, long-stapled, black-seeded sea-island type that grows upon the islands and a portion of the mainland of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. The air of the coast seems necessary for the production of this latter variety. The seeds of the sea-island cotton are small, smooth, and black. They are so smooth and stick so loosely to the lint that they are separated from it by roller-gins instead of by saw-gins.
When these seeds are planted away from the soil and air of their ocean home, the plant does not thrive.
Many attempts have been made and are still being made to increase the length of the staple of the upland types. The methods used are as follows: selection of seed having a long fiber; special cultivation and fertilization; crossing the short-stapled cotton on the long-stapled cotton. This last process, as already explained, is called _hybridizing_. Many of these attempts have succeeded, and there are now a large number of varieties which excel the older varieties in profitable yield. The new varieties are each year being more widely grown. Every farmer should study the new types and select the one that will best suit his land. The new types have been developed under the best tillage. Therefore if a farmer would keep the new type as good as it was when he began to grow it, he must give it the same good tillage, and practice seed-selection.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 185. COTTON READY FOR PICKING]
The cotton plant is nourished by a tap-root that will seek food as deeply as loose earth will permit the root to penetrate; hence, in preparing land for this crop the first plowing should be done at least with a two-horse plow and should be deep and thorough. This deep plowing not only allows the tap-root to penetrate, but it also admits a circulation of air.
On some cotton farms it is the practice to break the land in winter or early spring and then let it lie naked until planting-time. This is not a good practice. The winter rains wash more plant food out of unprotected soil than a single crop would use. It would be better, in the late summer or fall, to plant crimson clover or some other protective and enriching crop on land that is to be planted in cotton in the spring. This crop, in addition to keeping the land from being injuriously washed, would greatly help the coming cotton crop by leaving the soil full of vegetable matter.
In preparing for cotton-planting, first disk the land thoroughly, then break with a heavy plow and harrow until a fine and mellow seed-bed is formed. Do not spare the harrow at this time. It destroys many a weed that, if allowed to grow, would have to be cut by costly hoeing.
Thorough work before planting saves much expensive work in the later days of the crop. Moreover, no man can afford to allow his plant food and moisture to go to nourish weeds, even for a short time.
The rows should be from three to four feet apart. The width depends upon the richness of the soil. On rich land the rows should be at least four feet apart. This width allows the luxuriant plant to branch and fruit well. On poorer lands the distance of the rows should not be so great.
The distribution of the seed in the row is of course most cheaply done by the planter. As a rule it is best not to ridge the land for the seed.