Cotton
/Tulare Lake mostly disappeared
————
Tulare Lake mostly disappeared
It’s life ended, the lakebed sold
To agricultural interests
J. G. Boswell and Company
And other small-time operators
Who drained the swamps,
Tilled and graded the land,
Dammed the rivers, turned-back the flow,
Wrought huge flat, dryland fields.
The lowland filled with open-bolls
Of fluffy-white cotton,
A magnificent and glorious sight.
Plants two to four-feet high
Splendid pink and off-white flowers
Displaying bright-cotton.
In the Tulare Lake basin,
Growers produce fine cotton,
American-Pima in greater quantity
Than Alcala or Upland’s shorter fibers,
Or Egyptian extra-long staple-cotton.
Clean and soft, staple fiber grows
Around the seed soon after
The cotton-flower is fertilized.
Oklahoma and Dust-Bowl migrants,
Cotton pickers and sharecroppers
Worked as field-hands and fertilizers,
Tractor-drivers and irrigators,
From towns like Corcoran or Tulare.
February, there is much to be done,
Land-breaking, and planting.
Ground plowed to six or eight-inches,
Cultivating lacustrine earth
Chiseled deeper, opening the soil
Down to twenty-four-inches.
A land-plane dragged along
By a diesel track-machine
In a cloud of aerosolized dirt,
Breaks up the earth, packing it:
Floating the even land.
Cotton-planting in April, topsoil
Warm and dry enough to work;
Barring any cold or rain in spring.
Twenty pounds of seed an acre
Planted by machines, cotton-planters
Pulled behind the tractors.
The plant comes out in 5 to 7 days,
In two weeks branches are out.
Alcala bolls grow high on the plant.
Time for thinning and weeding,
More seeds are planted than needed,
Nine-out-of-ten plants are cut down.
Plants left to grow after chopping
Need 14-inches of room to split off.
Warm weather and moist soil
Good for cotton and weeds too.
Cotton-chopping rids the weeds
In-between, hoeing two or three times;
All must be done by hand,
With a long-handled hoe or shovel.
A cultivator pulled between the rows
takes place before the first irrigation.
Fertilizer in soil means more cotton.
Farmers in the lake pump nitrogen
Into the irrigation water
or merely apply potash.
Some farmers plant rotation-crops
In between rows; barley, wheat,
Or flax, alfalfa, or field-peas.
Sometimes three irrigations
Is not enough, in a semi-arid region.
Frost-free days, ample sunshine
Cooler nights and mornings
Keep the ground from drying out.
Field-hands make furrows among rows,
Let irrigation water run for hours.
Then they arrive: a pestilence outbreak,
Of Army ants, red-spiders
And aphid on sprouting leaves.
Bigger holdings use aircraft
To fly low over planted fields,
Drop dusting-powder
Reducing the harm from insects
Stinging the bud, flower or boll.
After six-weeks cotton begins ‘squaring,’
Buds setting every 10 to 15 days
Until the first-frost.
At some point in a crop’s life
Healthy leaves become undesirable,
A late summer ritual:
Cotton defoliation
---by air or ground treatment---
Removing the plant’s leaves
So cotton-bolls are harvested easier.
Sooner cotton is picked the better,
About middle-September most years.
Best cotton comes from the first-picking.
Late cotton gets picked in the second,
Sometimes a third picking in winter.
Twenty-foot cotton sacks hang on shoulders
And drag on the ground behind pickers,
Men, women, children not in school.
Before the arrival of the machine
Ended the slow tedious process.
Seed-cotton to the gin in trailers
Weighed and unloaded:
1300 pounds of seeded cotton
to a 500-pound bale field-picked.
Seeds, lint, and fiber
In the gin-stand, by-way-of
The cleaner; into round drums,
Spikes spinning around,
Whirring saws with small sharp-teeth
Pulling the lint from the seed.
Trash, dirt, and leaves blown
Out through the bottom.
Six iron bands on two sides
With jute-bagging keep the bales
Pressed and free-standing.
By Stephen Barile
From: United States