I haven't been out much so I don't know if the chinaberry trees are blooming but the middle of April usually finds them full of blooms. In North Louisiana that was a sign that it is time to plant cotton. Louisiana is still among the cotton producing states but it is no longer the top money crop as it was for more than a hundred years. With cotton at a record price and the boll weevil exterminated, I wonder if area farmers will convert more of their acreage to cotton. I don't know if the government still tells each farmer how many acres he is allowed to plant to cotton. Those controls, plus programs like the soil bank, knocked small farmers our of cotton planting and concentrated it along the Mississippi river in Louisiana.
My last cotton crop was the summer between my sophomore and junior years at LSU. I had to have others plant my crop but I hoed it, plowed it, picked it, and took it to the gin. That summer I also hitchhiked to Springhill nearly every day tor several weeks to apply for a summer job. I turned down the offer of a permanent job to go back to LSU. The next summer I attended LSU to make it possible for me to graduate at midterm. I intended to enroll that fall but had a persistent job offer so I accepted it and went to work.
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