Posted by KEH on November 25, 2016 at 16:04:15 from (64.53.75.200):
In Reply to: Re: cotton farmers posted by dr sportster on November 25, 2016 at 08:25:34:
Brief summary of cotton growing before chemicals and mechanical cotton pickers: Fields were plowed by mule drawn plows or sometimes by machinery. Daddy had a Fordson tractor, an Oliver harrow, and a 2 disk plow with mechanical trip. With a one horse planter it was not necessary to lay off the rows with a plow stock. Daddy scared up $45 at some point and bought a Cole planter with a fertilizer hopper on it to plant in one pass. The seed was planted very thick and then thinned by hand with a hoe to the proper spacing, which happened to be the width of the hoe blade. Thinning was done when the crop was about 2 to 4 inches high. At that time small grass was dug out also. Then a wooden plow stock pulled by one mule was used to kill grass in the row and middle. A flat adjustable piece of steel called a fender was attached to the plow on the side of the plow next to the cotton to keep from throwing dirt over the plant. Another trip was made with a bigger plow point. After the cotton was bigger it was plowed again and a little dirt was carefully thrown over the grass in the cotton row which hopefully would cover the grass and kill it. It usually didn't and it was necessary to hoe the cotton by hand again. After the cotton got 12-18 inches tall It could be plowed again and the middle plowed out with a shovel plow point. A steel framed plow referred to as an iron beamed plow was used to plow the middle using a shovel plow point. After this the crop was "laid by" which was a happy day for farmers. This was usually in late August.
The cotton was ready to pick when the bolls ripened and the white fluffy cotton was starting to fall out. It didn't ripen at the same time and if weather permitted farmers would go over the field twice to get all the cotton. The field was picked CLEAN. Nothing white was acceptable when one looked across a field. "Every lock counts." ( A lock is one piece of cotton as it comes from the boll.) A bale of cotton is 480 pounds and 1 1/2 per acre bales is a good yield, or it was in my area. I enjoyed going to the gin where the seed was removed from the cotton and the clean cotton was compressed into bales and hated going to school because I would miss out on riding to the gin in the 2 horse wagon.
For much of the cotton era it was possible for a family to make a bar living growing cotton. 2 things ended small farmers growing cotton. One was the boll weevil which was an insect which laid eggs in the cotton boll which hatched out and ate cotton before it emerged. The poison spray DDT did a good job killing boll weevils, but was outlawed. Any, the cost of spraying cotton knocked too big a hole in the profits, when it worked. The other thing which ended cotton growing was synthetic fabrics.
Presently, they have found ways to fight the boll weevil and other insect pests. Instead of thinning the cotton to a stand, farmers plant to the proper spacing, and if some seed doesn't come up they live with the skips. Grass is controlled with chemicals, no cultivating. Very expensive mechanical cotton pickers pick the cotton. They leave about 10% in the field which would horrify old time cotton growers. The price per pound of cotton is still variable.
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