Tulare Lake mostly disappeared

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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