•so

REESE LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Received.
Accessions No.

<?

Shelf No,

Red indicates- Cotton, lands of tfic

btjtt quality.

Yellow tndioatff second

Cotton land's producing three hund

red Ibs. per acre and

' indicates Zand& which/ pro.
(luce little or TW Cotton.

Tke*ve colors are riot intended

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uality of the land, for exam . \
ile: many creek vottomJs in the \-
iart marked 'green, produce same \

, & oftfa- Gifrfctjcz colored.
considerable tracts are, often
water.

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COTTON L

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COTTON CULTURE

BY

JOSEPH B. LYMAN,

< \

LATE OF LOUISIANA.

WITH AX ADDITIONAL CHAPTER ON

COTTON SEED AND ITS USES.

BY

J. R. SYPHER.

L I B R A R Y

UNIVKKSITV OF

& COMPANY

245 BROADWAY.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
ORANGE JUDD & CO.

At the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New-York.

LIBRARY

XI V Kit S.IT Y OF

CALIFORNIA

,

PREFACE.

This Treatise is not a compilation.

Agricultural literature is by no means so rich in valua-
ble works on the Cotton Plant, that it is possible to select
from existing writings the information which, however
skillfully grouped, can make an excellent book.

Twelve years of experience among the cotton growers
of the Southwest have been found by the author of vastly
more importance to the proper understanding of the whole
subject, than all which has been written.

Of what has been before given to the world on the sub-
ject, I have found no matter more valuable than the letters
of Dr. Cloud, of Alabama, who did more for the true and
scientific culture of the plant, than all the other Southern
writers put together.

His views, and those of that Bayou Sara planter who
wrote an admirable letter to De Bow's Review on the
Cotton-worm, have been freely quoted. Some useful
statistics are to be found in the New American Cyclopae-
dia, under the head of Cotton, and these, as well as other
tables, have been studied. The writer would also express
his obligations to Mr. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, whose
lecture before the Geographical Society of New York is
rich in valuable conclusions.

But whatever is of most worth in the pages that follow,
is the result of personal observation, and of frequent and
lengthy conversations with the most successful and the
:most intelligent cultivators of the great staple,
3

A TREATISE ON COTTON CULTME,

OF1 CONTENTS.

PART I.

WHERE AND HOW THE PLANT IS RAISED. - A SERIES OP

PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS AS TO THE ESTABLISHED

ANNUAL ROUTINE IN COTTON PLANTING.

CHAPTER I.

THE COTTON FARM. — ITS STOCK, IMPLEMENTS, AND LABORERS

The Climate for Cotton. Geographical Boundaries of the Cotton Zone.
Soils Best Suited to Cotton Growing1. Draft Animals Required by the
Planter. Plows, Wagons, Laborers, Milk .................... p.p. 9 — 16

CHAPTER II.

PREPARATION OP THE SOIL AND PLANTING.

Time for Plowing ; Manner of Plowing. Laying-off the Cotton Beds.
Time for Planting. Varieties of Seed. Errors in Keeping Seed. Im-
mediate Preparation for and Manner of Planting. Amount of Seed Re-
quired. Advantages of Precision in Making the Rows. The Old Mode
of Planting. Improved Cotton Planter. Preparation of the Seed for
Planting .................................................... p.p. 16—23

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE CROP IS TO BE CULTIVATED.

First Appearance of the Plant. "Chopping Out." Hoeing, Rapid
Movement Required. Attention to Corn. Amount of Moisture Re-
quired by Cotton. Lice Bred by Excess of Moisture and, at a Later
Stage, Rust. Remedy for these Evils. Proper Shape of Plows for Cotr
ton. The Eagle Plow or Sweep. Frequency of Going Over the Crop.
Time of First Blooms on Cotton ; Description of Bloom ; the " Forms."
Effects of Great Excess of Moisture, etc. Continued Heat at this
Stage. When Plowing should be Discontinued. Summary of the Old
Routine. Modification of this Routine. Care for the Laborer and his
Mule. Improvement on the Old Modes. The Shanghai Plow. Sum-
mary of the Best Mode of Planting and Cultivating the Cotton
Crop ...................................................... p.p. 23—35

4

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.

COTTON PICKING.

Time of Commencing. Utensils and Preparation. Picking M^
Done Mainly by Hand. Slow and Fast Picking ; Conveniences and En-
couragements. Health of Field Laborers. Sorting and Trashing of the
Cotton. Four Grades. Economy of Time and Labor in Handling the
Crop. The Picking Season ; its Length. Task Work. Weight of Lint
as Compared with Unginned Cotton p.p. 36 — 15

CHAPTER V.

GINNING, BALING, AND MARKETING.

Principle of the Whitney Gin ; Description of Its Parts. The Gin-
house. Plans of First and Second Stories. The Drying Scaffold. Im-
provements Suggested. The Old Wooden Packing-box and Screw.
Cost of Bad Packing. Cut and Description of an Improved Press. The
Iron Hoop. Honor and Reliability in Putting up a Crop. The Planter
should be a Judge of the Market. Speedy and Direct Communication
between Producer and Consumer p.p. 45 — 59

CHAPTER VI.

THE COTTON PLANTERS' CALENDAB.

January.— The Gin ; the Market ; Pressing. Clearing off the Fields.
Filling up Washes and Gulches. Taking Care of Seed Cotton. Using
the Remainder of the Cotton Seed for Manure.

February. — About Time to Commence Plowing. Plan and Prepare
for Another Crop ; Cut Wood ; Haul out Manure ; Decide on Rotation
of Crops ; " Bedding Up " for the Rows. Oats.

Jfarch.'—The Garden ; Melons ; Plantation Roads ; Circle Ditching
and Circle Plowing ; Beginning to Plant.

April.— Careful Planting; First Going Over; the Shanghai Plow;
Cutting Away to a Stand.

May.— Another Thorough Working ; Best Mode of Plowing between
Cotton Rows ; the Sweep ; Importance of Good Plowing.

June. — Cultivation Varies Somewhat with the Season and Moisture ;
Caring for the Well-being of Man and Beast in the Field.

July. — Last Working in Advanced Crop ; Fodder Pulling ; Drink for
Field Hands ; Effect of Fodder Pulling upon the Grain.

August. — Picking at Hand; Advance of the Enemies of Cotton ; How
to Fight the Army-worm ; the Caterpillar or Cotton-moth ; How to De-
stroy them.

September.— The Picking to be Pushed ; Care for the Hands ; Coffee in
the Morning.

October.— Keeping up the Spirits ; Sorting Cotton ; the Trasher.

VI COTTON CULTURE.

November, — Avoid Night Work ; Ginning ; Cotton Should Lie for a
Time in the Seed.

December. — Gathering of other Crops ; Hauling Cotton to Market ;
Clearing the Fields for the following Crop p. p. 59—68

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

QUALITY, EXTENT, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COTTON LANDS
OF NORTH AMERICA.

Boundaries of the Cotton Belt. Which are the Cotton States ? Texas :
Extent and Character of its Cotton Lands ; Soil and Climate described ;
Valley of the Brazos ; Black Prairies ; Valleys of other Rivers in Texas.
Louisiana and Arkansas : their Cotton Fields ; the Washita Lands ;
Cotton South of Red River, and North of the Arkansas. Mississippi :
Its Alluvial Lauds ; Cotton Planting in the Hills ; the Tombigbee Lands.
Alabama : Its Alluvial and Black Cane Brake Lands ; Extent and Fertil-
ity of its Richest Fields. Georgia : its Three Divisions, Southern, Mid-
dle, and Northern ; Climate and Soil of each ; the Facilities for Cotton
Growing. South Carolina: Three General Classes of Lands as in
Georgia ; the Best Cotton Lands ; Inferior Lands. North Carolina and
Tennessee : the Limited Region in these States where Cotton is Grown ;
Cotton north of 38° ; Principal Dates in a Cotton Crop ; Effect of Short-
ening the Season ; the Experiment of 1862 p.p. 69 — 84

CHAPTER II.

ENEMIES AND DISEASES OF COTTON.

The Cotton-louse and How to Get Rid of it. The Cut-worm; How to
Prevent his Ravages. The Cotton-moth or Caterpillar ; its Fearful Rav-
ages Described. Full Account of, arid Description of the Insect in its Dif-
ferent Forms ; two Modes of Attacking it. Effect of Rotation of Crops ;
Manner in which it Destroys itself; Conclusions with Regard to it. The
Army-worm ; Compared with the Caterpillar ; How to Arrest its March ;
Army-worm Described. Boll-worm ; Peculiarities of this Insect ; the
Moth described ; Manner and Place of Laying Eggs ; Appearance of the
Worm ; Mischief it Produces ; How to Get Rid of it ; Modes of extermi-
nating the Moth. Diseases of Cotton : Rust ; What Produces it ; Sore
Shiu ; Rot, or Gangrene. Blue Cotton p.p. 84 — 100

CHAPTER III.

IMPROVED AND SCIENTIFIC CULTURE OF COTTON.

Reasons for the unskillful Manner in which Cotton has generally been
Raised. The Preservation and Restoration of Cotton Lands Depends on

TABLE OF CONTENTS. VH

Two Practices: Circle Plowing and Ditching, and Manuring. The
Amount to which Uplands in Cotton Deteriorate by Washing. The
First Practice of Circle Plowing. Circle Ditching ; Detailed Instruc-
tions. Fertilizing Properties Removed from the Soil by Cotton. Anal-
ysis of the Lint and of the Seed. Fertilizers which Best Restore the
Elements Abstracted. Best Manure for Cotton Lands : Guano. Cotton
Should not be Manured in the Drill. Dr. Cloud and his Improved Cul-
ture. Reasons for not Manuring in the Hill. "High Farming" in
Connection with Cotton ; what it Consists in. The proper Rotation of
Crops on a Cotton Farm. Most Suitable Arrangements for Making
Large Amounts of Manure ; Best Method of Applying it. Mode of Cul-
tivation that Should Follow ; the Results. Cotton Seed Better as a Ma-
nure the Second Year than the First. The Length of Time for which this
High Manuring is Felt Contrast between "High" and "Low Farm-
ing" in Cotton. Jmprovement of the Seed by the Use of Fertilizers ;
Gypsum to be Applied with Guano p.p. 100 — 119

CHAPTER IV.

VARIOUS KINDS OF COTTON CULTIVATED IN THE UNITED STATES.

Upland and Sea Island. Mexican Seed, how Introduced. Petit Gulf
Seed, and "Why so Called. Prices at which Improved Varieties Sell.
Methods of Improving any Seed ; Something Depends on Locality. Va-
rious Seeds Developed from the Mexican and Petit Gulf. Mr. Phillips
on the Varieties of Cotton Seed. Manner in which Choice Varieties De-
teriorate ; "Banana" and "Mastodon" instanced; Five Conclusions
on the Subject. Sea Island Cotton ; its Average Yield and Price. Sea
Island Cotton described ; Time when it Began to be.Cultivated ; Results
of an Analysis of Sea Island Cotton and Soil ; how Cultivated ; Method
of Ginning and Preparing for Market. Mr. Chichester's Invention. The
Largest Crop of Sea Island. Other Statistics p.p. 119—132

CHAPTER V.

HOW TO REALIZE THE MOST FROM A CROP; SUGGESTIONS AS TO
THE UNION OF THE GROWING OF COTTON "WITH ITS MANU-
FACTURE INTO YARNS AND FABRICS.

No probability that the South will ever Manufacture All the Cotton
she Grows. A Plan Suggested for Manufacturing : One Large, Central
Factory in every Town or Township ; Machinery Driven by Steam ;
Facilities for Ginning, Packing, and Manufacturing Enough Cloth for
that Community. Ground Plan of such Factory with Oil-mill Attached ;
the Bagging also to be Made there from the Trashy Cotton. Advantages
of the Plan Proposed. Perfection of Ginning and Baling. Modifica-
tions of the Proposed Plan for Different Localities. Associated Capital
Compared with Individual Enterprise. The Plan Proposed Adapted to
the Small Producer. Question of Operatives p.p. 133—141

VIII COTTOX CULTURE.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE VALUE OF COTTON AS A PLANT, AND THE USES TO WHICH
IT MAT BE APPLIED.

Cheapness of Cotton as an Article of Clothing. Cotton for Ropes ;
as a Material for Beds ; as a Material for Bed-Covers ; Cotton Blankets.
The Comfoj-ts that Two Bales of Cotton may be Made to Bring into One
Family. The Possible Employment of Cotton as a Building Material.
Cotton-stalk Hemp. Cotton Seed as Food for Animals; as Manure. A

Medicine from the Root of the Cotton Plant. .'. p.p. 141—149

CHAPTER VII.

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF COTTON ; ITS HISTORY AND STATISTICS.

Cotton Previous to the Present Century ; no Mention of it in the
Earliest Writings. What Herodotus Says. Cotton Introduced from In-
dia to Rome. Hindoo Mode of Weaving ; Wonderful Delicacy of some
of their Fabrics. Difficulty of Producing Large Amounts of Cotton in
India. Cotton in Egypt and Africa. Early Notices of Cotton in the
New World. Its Culture in the West Indies and Brazil. First Culture
in the United States. Impetus given by the Invention of the Gin. An
Account of the Manner in which Eli Whitney Made the Discovery ; the
Importance of his Invention. Statistical Tables as to Increase, Amount,
Price, and Total Value of the Various Cotton Crops of the United States.
Five Conclusions with Respect to the Past and the Future of Cotton as
Drawn from a Study of the Tables. Views Expressed in the London
Economist. Question of Cotton Supply during the War. ..pp. 149 — 164
CHAPTER VIII.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS TO VARIOUS CLASSES OF PERSONS WHO
PROPOSE TO ENGAGE IN COTTON GROWING.

Modes of Producing Cotton in the Future ; Different Classes likely to
be Engaged in it. Suggestions to the Large Capitalist and Joint Stock
Companies as to the Best Cotton Lands ; the Advantages and Disadvan-
tages of Various Sections Examined. The Cotton Fields of Alabama,
Texas, and of the Mississippi Valley Considered. Attractions of the
Upland Cotton Fields ; their Desirableness for the Farmer. Middle
Tennessee Considered. The Northern parts of Alabama and Georgia.
North-western Arkansas. Northern Texas. The Poor Immigrant will
Go where he can Get the Highest Wages ; with Thrift he can soon Rise
above a Hireling ; Three Simple Rules for Keeping his Health. Con-
clusion p.p. 164 — 179

CHAPTER IX.

COTTON SEED OIL. COTTON SEED CAKE.

The Discovery of Oil in Cotton Seed. Experiments. Process of
Manufacture of Oil. Difficulties to be Overcome. Seed Hullers. Ma-
chinery Required to Express Oil. How Oil is Expressed. _ How Refined.
Its Uses. Cotton Seed Cake. Its Value in Stock-feeding. As a Fertil-
izer. Ashes of the Hulls p.p. 380—190

A TREATISE ON COTTON CULTURE.

.PART I.

WHERE AND HOW THE PLANT IS RAISED.— A SERIES

OF PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS AS TO THE ESTABLISHED

ANNUAL ROUTINE IN COTTON PLANTING.

CHAPTER I.

THE COTTON FARM; ITS STOCK, IMPLEMENTS AND
LABORERS.

Two general considerations must be regarded in ap-
proaching the business of cotton producing ; one that of
climate, the other of the soil.

The natural demands of the plants are for a tropical or
semi-tropical climate that affords seven or eight months
entirely secure from frosts. In the United States cotton
is produced in all the belt that reaches from 40° north
latitude to the Gulf of Mexico. A line drawn westward
from Philadelphia divides that part of the country where
cotton will, in various degrees, reward the labor of culti-
vation from those where its production is hopeless.

But in the upper part of that belt, between 36° and 40°,
it is an exotic, more than half its productive power being
9 1*

10 COTTON CULTURE.

entirely cut away by a damp and chilly April, and a frosty
October. The superiority of the lands of the Southern
States of North America is due less to soil than to climate.
In the relations of the mountains to the sea and of the
Great Valley to the Gulf, into which its waters pour, is
to be found the true secret of the rapid ascent of cotton
to a great commercial and political power. This was very
aptly stated by a recent lecturer before the American
Geographical Society in terms substantially as follows :

" The peculiar climate of the Cotton States I understand
to be produced by the chain of mountains which intersects
our country, the lower spurs of the Alleghany range
passing off westward in the hills of northern Georgia, Ala-
bama, and Mississippi.

" On these the moisture brought inland by the sea-
breezes from the Gulf and Gulf-stream is condensed, and
falls in many showers, but not often in long storms ; these
showers occur frequently in spring, but rarely in midsum-
mer and autumn, thus giving dry seasons for gathering the
crop. After it has attained a vigorous growth, the cotton
plant may defy the drouth, for by means of a long tap-
root it lives upon the moisture accumulated beneath the
surface during the winter and spring rains."

A line drawn from Raleigh westward through Nashville,
and continued into the northern part of Arkansas has,
until of late, been regarded as the true northern limit of
the cotton belt, south of which it is, even at ten cents a
pound, the most valuable crop that can be produced.

There are some good cotton lands in North Carolina,
but that State has never been a large producer of the staple.
Many of its river bottoms are too wet and heavy, and most
of its uplands are too poor.

West of the mountains very little has ever been grown
in the valleys of the upper Tennessee. But descending that
tortuous stream, and passing west of Chattanooga into
northern Alabama and western Tennessee, we come into

COTTON CULTURE. 11

a region quite favorable to its growth, and in the section
lying between the Tennessee and Cumberland, and drained
by the Duck and Elk rivers, it has, in about half the
counties, been for many years the staple.

In the northern part of those valleys, below Fort Donel-
son, its production gives place to tobacco. With the
exception of these parts of Tennessee, and the south-eastern
half of Arkansas, the Cotton States all touch the ocean or
the Gulf. The thirty-second degree, or a line drawn across
the Gulf States through Montgomery and Jackson, is the
centre of the cotton belt. For a hundred miles each side
of that parallel, north and south, and especially in the lands
bordering on the lower half of all the affluents of the Gulf
and the southern tributaries of the Mississippi, cotton is
produced to an extent, and of a quality surpassed by no
other equal area of the earth's surface. This is its natural
home ; here is its chosen domain. For cotton is essentially
a child of the sun. It does not rejoice in copious moisture,
and can thrive and come to perfection on less rain than any
plant cultivated on the continent.

There are three classes of soil well suited to cotton.
First, the soft argillaceous limestone, or what is called the
rotten limestone and red lands of Georgia, South Carolina,
parts of Alabama and Mississippi, and a small part of
Texas.

This description of soil is soft, fine and friable, easily
washed away, nearly, and in many parts entirely free from
stones. The descents to streams are steep, but, in general,
such soil is spread over an undulating surface, about half
of which should be protected from washing by the winter
rains with a system of circle ditching or circle ploughing.
The growth on such lands is beech, magnolia, white and
red oak, and some pine on the swells, with gum and enor-
mous poplars on the creek bottoms. From 1840 to 1850
probably two-thirds or three-fourths of all the cotton pro-
duced grew on land of this description. For the ten years

12 COTTON CULTURE.

preceding the war, there was a strong tendency among all
the cotton planters to transfer their labor to alluvial
lands.

The second class of cotton soils are the rich black cane-
brake lands of middle Alabama and the black rolling
prairies of Texas. These are generally called the black
lands, and cannot be surpassed by any alluvions for the
certainty with which they produce crops, their freedom
from destructive vermin, the admirable roll of the surface
just sufficient for drainage, and the completeness with
which every square yard of the soil may be turned under
the plow. In winter, the roads through this class of
lands become immense black mortar beds, where a loaded
wagon sinks nearly to the axle, and six mules can hardly
pull four bales, but in spring these formidable sloughs
harden, and become polished under the wheel, so as to
afford for eight months of the year a road as firm, smooth,
and agreeable as it is horrible during the remaining four.

Another discount on these regions is the badness of the
water. In general, however, such lands are considered
worth twice as much as the former or red hill countries.
In 1860 the price of the former ranged from ten to thirty
dollars per^acre, according to the degree to which they
were washed or exhausted, nearness to markets and towns,
excellence of buildings, and state offences.

The black lands of middle Alabama, between the Tom-
bigbee and the Alabama rivers, were seldom sold at less
than fifty dollars, and the price ranged from that to one
hundred. Now, (1867,) large surfaces are in market at
r.bout half the price they commanded before the war.

The alluvions or river bottoms are the third and most
valuable class of cotton lands. Like river bottoms every-
where, the valleys of the Santee, the Chattahoochee, the
Alabama and Tombigbee, the Pearl, and, beyond all, the
cast areas drained by the Mississippi and its lower tribut-
aries have very little inclination, and that little is gener-

COTTON CULTURE. 13

ally away from the bank rather than towards the stream.
But the soil is admirably adapted to cotton and the under-
drain is such as to compensate for the flatness. Successive
overflows haTe deposited an exhaustless bed of vegetable
mould, mixed with fine sand and wash from the hills,
through which the falling rains easily pass to a porous sub-
soil.

In dry seasons, a copious dew, which is rapidly evapo-
rated by the hot morning sun, drenches the plants. The low
lands are covered by a heavy growth of gum, magnolia,
poplar and cypress, with, in many places, a thick under-
growth of cane. The labor of clearing, and the vegetable
rniasins of swamp lands, render them less desirable for per-
manent residence than the two classes above described, but
their exhaustless fertility, and the ease with which great
crops can be marketed, the steamboat in thousands of cases
coming within a few hundred yards of the gin house, can
but form a very strong attraction to every enterprizing
cultivator. In 1860, the general price of bottom lands,
cleared, cultivated, and safe from overflow, was one
hundred dollars per acre.

Suppose now a person has a capital that enables
him to possess and cultivate a cotton farm of two hundred
acres, about half of which he proposes to put in cotton,
the remainder being devoted to corn, vegetable garden,
pasture, and woodland. What stock and implements, and
what number of laborers should he have ?

Of draft animals, his principal demand is for mules or
horses. Oxen are too slow and heavy for the business,
unless it be in the fall, in hauling long distances to market
or a shipping point. It is desirable also that his mules be
of medium size, and remarkable for a fast walk above
every other quality. The cultivation of cotton requires
rapid movement rather than strength. Except in opening
heavy timbered land, weight of bone, either in animals or
laborers, is unnecessary and frequently objectionable.

14 COTTON CULTURE.

Moderate sized mules, rather long-legged, hardy, and not
great eaters, are the best on a plantation.

On account of their greater freedom of movement, horses
are a little superior to mules, but they are more apt to
break down in the long hot days of June and July, when
they must be constantly in the traces.

A mule to every ten acres in cotton is no more than a
proper allowance. On the place supposed, ten mules is the
complement. Of plows there will be required two kinds,
one for breaking up and forming the beds, the other for
subsequent cultivation. Heavy plowing is seldom called
for on a cotton farm, and as an anomaly in agriculture,
deep plowing between the rows has been found positively
injurious. The reason is this : deep cultivation on many
soils tends to develop a rank growth of the plant, and to
retard the early opening of bolls ; and cotton can be suc-
cessfully grown only by a treatment that pushes the plant
to an early maturity. For preparing the land, four or five
large plows will be required. These should be rather broad
than deep, with the moulding board well rolled over.

Eight or more small plows will be used in the cultiva-
tion. By small plows is meant those which make a light
furrow, and their form will be discussed in a following

7 O

chapter. Ten hoes will be needed, and three or four small
light harrows.

Arrangements for harvesting the crop and hauling to
market vary so much with the distances from the gin
house and the shipping point, that no directions can be
given that will be of universal application. The planter
of one hundred acres may need no high box wagons for
bringing in seed cotton from the field, and his gin house
may be so near a stream that the bales can be rolled
directly from the shed to the deck of a steamer. Under
advantageous circumstances, a single four-wheeled wagon
will suffice for the hauling of a place such as we suppose.

COTTOX CULTURE. 15

But in the great majority of situations at least two large
wagons will be found necessary.

A gin house with machinery for grinding com is almost
a prime necessity. But this may be erected in the interval
between laying aside the crop and the picking season.
August is not generally a very busy month on a cotton
farm.

As to the laborers on a place of the size supposed, ten
hands is the average; one hand to ten acres in cotton.
Unless the surface is uncommonly rough,, and the season
unfavorable, a good hand can take proper care of ten acres
in cotton, and five in corn, besides having some time in the
garden. But in the picking season, it is very desirable to
put two or three more hands into the field. If your laud
is a rich bottom, it may produce six hundred pounds, or a
bale and a half of ginned cotton to the acre, and it is a
very smart picker that can get out fifteen bales in a season.
Ten bales to the hand is always good work. In employing
laborers, regard should be had chiefly to their capacity as
cotton pickers, and here the difference is astonishing. Two
men will work together all the year, a match for each other
in chopping, splitting rails, plowing, hoeing and harvesting
corn, yet in September, when they go into the cotton field
with sacks on their shoulders, one will bring out two hun-
dred pounds, and the other one hundred. One is naturally
quick in his motions, and the other, though a faithful
laborer and equally assiduous, cannot " get the knack of
it," and though, by the stimulus of extra wages, he may
come up to a hundred and fifty, and in the best picking to
two hundred, he will never overtake his comrade.

In this respect, women are better than men ; as a rule
they make the best pickers. The work is light, though
monotonous. The most of cotton is from three to four
feet high, and many bolls are but a few inches from the
ground, hence a tall person works at a disadvantage. A
man about five feet six inches, or five feet eiirht inches,

16 COTTON CULTURE.

compactly built, is likely to be the most valuable on a
cotton farm, because he will prove a faster picker than an
athletic man of brawny frame and large muscles.

It is very desirable also to hire laborers that are accus-
tomed to cotton, and particularly such as are skillful with
the plow. A man that understands circle plowing, on a
hill place, that can carry his scooter, his sweep, or his
cultivator within two inches of a row of young plants, yet
never break or uproot one, and who can pick rapidly in
the fall, is worth a hundred dollars a year more than one
who understands nothing but corn or wheat and tobacco,
though the latter may "be the more able bodied man of the
two.

Care should be taken to have an abundance of milk.
No drink is so grateful to the heated laborer, who passes
the whole day from dawn to sunset between the rows, as
buttermilk. The curd it contains is nourishing, and the
acid cooling. Milk in every form in which it can be taken,
is admirably suited to the farm laborer, and in stocking a
cotton farm, a cow to every three or four persons should be
provided.

CHAPTER II.

PREPARATION OF THE SOIL AND PLANTING.

The plows should be started just as early in the spring
as the season will permit. In the latter part of February,
the ground in the hill country and red lands, will often be
found dry enough. The same is true of the bottom lands
in the latitude of Yicksburg, and in the southern counties
of South Carolina and Georgia. In general, it may be said
that the direct preparation for a crop commences with
February. The first plowing depends somewhat upon the

COTTON CULTURE. 17

crop of the previous year. If the breadth was planted in
cotton, all that is necessary is to keep a hand or two in ad-
vance of the plow, with hoes or clubs, to break down the
old cotton stalks, or pull them up by the roots, and throw
them into piles for burning. If the growth is not very
rank they had better be plowed in, but in rich bottoms,
where it sometimes attains the height of six or eight feet,
the large branching stalks are unmanageable, and had
better be burned. Where cotton was the previous crop,
and no change in the width of the rows is desirable, run
a small furrow between the ridges, then let the large plow
pass on the middle of the slope of each row or ridge, and
throw furrows from each side that will lap, so that what
was a " middle " last year shall be a row this year, and
vice versa. Where the previous crop was corn, and it be-
comes necessary to change the width of the rows, and
where the land has been lying out, and is covered with
tall weeds and sedge grass, a different course is to be pur-
sued. The rows or beds are laid off by running shallow
furrows at the proper distances apart. These distances are
to be determined by the nature of the soil, say five and a
half or six feet, and sometimes seven on very strong bot-
tom lands, and four or four and a half on light lands. A
good plan on stubble, corn, or fallow land, is to lay off the
rows with a scooter, (a small plow without mould-boards,
making a shallow furrow,) enlarge the furrow with a
shovel-plow, then drag all the weeds, stubble and trash
into these furrows, and cover in by throwing two furrows
together upon this trench with a two horse plow. Many
careless cultivators simply lap two furrows together, leav-
ing six or eight inches of unbroken soil beneath. If good
crops are thus raised, and it quite often happens that they
are, it is due to the exuberance of a virgin soil, which can
make amends for almost any neglect in cultivation. All
the writers, and all planters, who have given the results
of their experience, agree in saying that cotton requires a

18 COTTON CULTUKE.

soft, deep bed. The most thorough cultivation would seem
to require that the plowing should be continued until all
the space between the rows, or the " middles," as they are
called, are plowed or "broken out," in cotton parlance,
by throwing up the soil upon the beds on each side. But
the prevalent custom has been not to " break out " these
" middles " at the first plowing, but to do it afterwards in
the course of cultivating the crop. On lands that have
been thoroughly cultivated, this omission is probably im-
material. At any rate, the very best of crops are produced
year after year by this method.

After this first plowing, the ridges or beds should remain
a month or so, that the soil may be settled by the spring
rains. Planting commences about the first of April, a
week or two earlier, say by the fifteenth or twentieth of
March, on dry lands, on the lower margin of the cotton
belt, and may be delayed as late as the tenth or twentieth
of April, in the latitude of Naslwille. But any delay after
the first of April must abridge that much from the cotton
picking season, for four or four and a half months must be
allowed for the growth of the cotton plant. Cotton that
is well up on the first of April, will, in a favorable season,
begin to open early in August, so that by the fifteenth a
picker can come out of the rows with fifty pounds a day.
Yet if the seed is put in the ground too soon, and a long
cold rain follows, it is, like corn, liable to rot, and the
plants, when they appear, will have a stunted and yellow
look.

The varieties of cotton, and the different kinds of seed,
Avhose respective merits are discussed among planters, are
fully treated of in a subsequent chapter.

The two grand divisions of cotton in the United States
are into Sea Island and Upland. The seed of the former
is black and smooth, of the latter dark yellowish-green, and
covered with a fine down. Botanists call the former " tree
cotton" and the latter "shrub cotton." The variety of

COTTON CULTUEE. 19

the shrub cotton most known in this country, is the West
Indian, and the seed used on a great majority of the plan-
tations is the Mexican or Petit Gulf.

With a beginner in this branch of agriculture, the variety
of Mexican seed which he uses is of much less importance
than its age and the condition in which he finds it. Seed
that has stood through the winter rains in a great pile near
the gin house, as was the practice before the war on most
plantations, has been heated by fermentation, and its
germinating power destroyed. A very large number of
planting enterprizes were dampened by irretrievable delay
in the springs of 1865 and 1866 from the difficulty of ob-
taining good seed. That first planted failed to sprout,
was plowed up, and other seed planted in the middle and
last of April, and often as late as the middle of May. A
month of invaluable time was thus consumed, and to com-
plete the mischief, the second planting was frequently no
more fortunate than the tfrst. There is nothing in the
nature of the plant that should make seed two or more
years old worthless, except the increasing probability that
in keeping it for this length of time, it has become heated.

Seed that has been kept a year or two, and well taken
care of, will ensure a more vigorous stand of plants as
the defective seeds perish in keeping over.

If the beds or ridges have been thrown up for some
time, and the surface baked by heavy rains, the soil should
be loosened by running a light harrow on the top of the
bed. The harrow should have a handle, so that the laborer
can walk behind, and keep it on the top of the ridge. A
convenient and cheap arrangement for this purpose is made
by bending a hickory pole an inch and a half in diameter,
and six feet long, in the form of a big ox-bow, and inserting
the ends a little behind the middle of each shaft or branch
of the common V-shaped harrow.

The harrow is followed by some instrument for making
a shallow but very straight furrow for the seeds. Some

20 COTTON CULTURE.

planters are so impressed with the importance of having
the seed furrow straight, that they send a good hoe hand
to draw a line with the edge of his blade. Where the beds
are laid off in right lines, as is the case on level and slightly
rolling lands, a good instrument can be extemporized by
inserting a blunt wooden tooth, three inches long, in a
stick, three inches in diameter, at intervals of four feet, if
that is the distance of rows determined upo», as re-
presented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Shafts are inserted by which the mule is attached, and
a big hickory bow for handling it, as in the harrow. Where
the beds are curved, as is the practice in land that washes
easily, a contrivance of this sort would be useless, and a
light furrow is run with a small plow.

Probably the corn planter in common use at the West
might be adjusted so as to work well with cotton seed.
The down or beard on the cotton seeds makes them wad
together in little clumps or bunches, so they will not fall
regularly, one at a time, like the polished and uniform
kernels of corn.

Thirty pounds of seed will plant an acre. Less will do
it if confidence can be felt in their soundness, and if pains
are taken to drop the seeds one at a time, at intervals oi
from two to five inches. Some of the South Carolina
planters use a triangular log, three feet long, armed at the
front with a bit of iron, (a small horse-shoe will answer,)
which they drag along the middle of the bed, keeping the
sharp edge down, so as to make a narrow, smooth trench

COTTON CULTURE. 21

for the seeds, and thus ensure a straight line of young
plants. Any person of ingenuity can think of some con-
trivance by which this may be effected, and certainly no
part of cotton planting will pay better than attention at
this point. Remember that for three months your plows,
scrapers, or cultivators, are to be kept running backwards
and forwards between these cotton rows, and, if the line of
plants is straight and even, the coulter or the outside tooth
of the cultivator can be carried so close to the plants as
almost to supersede the use of the hoe. Experience has
shown that a hand can tend an acre or two acres more,
where the planting was done with care and the line of
young plants is uniform and even, than where the planting
was careless. One great reason why little attention was
ever paid to the best and neatest modes of getting a crop
into the ground, was the universal feeling that the force of
laborers necessary to pick a crop could easily plant and
cultivate one. This may be true, but it affords no apology
for rude and careless work. If eight plow and hoe hands
can raise as much cotton as twelve can pick, it only shows
that a skillful planter can keep four hands at making im-
provements, raising vegetables, and looking after stock
during the months of April, May, June, and July, while
his less thoughtful neighbor has every hand in the cotton
field. Economy of labor always and everywhere pays.

The following is the old established mode of planting,
practiced on millions of acres annually. In the warm days
of the latter part of March, the seed cotton was hauled to
the fields, and dropped in piles of three or four bushels, at
convenient distances. A harrow passed along on the top
of the bed, followed by a light plow, and behind came a
boy or a woman, generally the latter, with an apron full
of seed, which was refilled, as often as empty, from the
nearest heap. These were dashed by handfuls into the
furrow with a quick downward jerk or fling of the right
hand, the left meanwhile holding the apron. The seeds

22 COTTON CULTURE.

were covered sometimes by a harrow, and sometimes by a
board fastened to the lower part of a light plow. This
board should be made of some hard wood, as oak or gum,
an inch or an inch and a half thick, about eight inches
broad, and thirty inches long, beveled on the lower edge,
so as to be sharp, and cut away in a curve, so as to fit the
ridge. This wooden scraper and coverer, when drawn over
the row, covers the seed nicely, leaves a moderate eleva-
tion in the middle, and dresses the whole surface of the bed
neatly for the space of a foot or more on each side of the
drill.

Now what we want is an improved cotton planter, having
a few harrow teeth in front, which, with one hand and
one or two horses, will go over the beds — a reliable and
even working arrangement for dropping the seed in drills ;
and last, the scraper or coverer described above. There
is no reason why the whole operation should not be per-
formed by one implement. Ten acres can thus be planted
in one day by one team ; whereas in the old way it takes
a gang of four laborers and three mules to go over the
same ground.

In the northern parts of the cotton region, where cold
spring rains often delay the planting till the last of April,
or the first of May, it is desirable to roll the seed in a fer-
tilizer that will hasten the germination. A compound of
two parts of ashes to one of common salt is recommended
by Dr. Cloud, a very successful planter in Alabama. Others
soak first in salt dissolved in liquid stable manure, and,
when damp, roll in plaster. The latter mode is preferable,
as the plaster separates the seeds which otherwise tend to
mat together, and when the dropping is by hand and care-
fully done, the white balls are easily to be seen, and can
be laid more readily in the bottom of the seed furrow.

Cotton needs only a light covering ; not more than peas.
An inch is^ enough, and on damp, clayey soils, too much.
It will sometimes happen that a heavy rain, followed by

COTTON CULTURE. 23

a hot sun, will fall upon the field just after the planting
is concluded. Unless the soil is quite sandy, the surface
may bake in a firm crust over the seeds, and delay their
sprouting. In this case it is a good plan to pass lightly
over the beds with a harrow, taking care to draw up the
teeth so as only to scratch the surface and crumble this
crust. This is more important in swamp land than on the
hills.

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE CROP IS TO BE CULTIVATED

Iii ten days or two weeks from the time the seed was
laid in its narrow bed, the planter, walking over his cotton
field, may expect to see a row of tiny leaflets just bursting
out of the moist earth. If the interval has been uncom-
monly wet and cold, anxiety is mingled with his hopes,
for so many of the seeds may have rotted as to give him
only an uneven and ragged looking stand. The question
of replanting must be decided in a day or two, for time is
now precious, and every week lost at this end of the season
is just so much subtracted from the length of the picking
season. If he has planted thick, and the stand, in most
places, is a fair one, the chilled seeds in the damper soils
may yet come out and do well. He first sees two leaflets,
and in about three days the third appears. Cotton has
this advantage over many other crops, that it has not the
least resemblance to any of the weeds which infest the
field, so the most careless glance will decide as to whether
a particular sprout is cotton or not. As soon as the third
leaf is fairly developed, the cultivation begins, and here,
at the very outset, the difference between careful and
slovenly planting of the seed will appear. Where the-

24 COTTON CULTURE.

seeds are dashed carelessly into a wide and somewhat irreg-
ular furrow, the line of plants will be correspondingly
irregular. If, on the other hand, the furrow or drill was
small and sharply defined, and the seeds laid neatly at the
drill, and that drill quite straight, the work of thinning
out and cutting away to a stand will be very much easier.
Of course, the first thing to be done, where the sprouts are
very thick, is to cut away the superfluous plants, and con-
centrate all the fertilizing powers of the soil upon the most
thrifty specimens. The usual practice is to "run around
the stand," as it is called, that is, to carry a small furrow
close up to the crest of the bed on each side, cutting away
and covering the grass and superfluous plants. Here very
much depends upon the skill of the plowman. By keep-
ing a firm grasp upon the handles, and a close rein on the
mule, a good plowman will carry his coulter within two
inches of the row of little plants, yet never disturb them,
while an inexperienced hand will run a furrow that is
sometimes a foot from the row, and sometimes throws a
pile of dirt upon the plants and buries them. Where the
plowing is well done, the thinning out, or " chopping out,"
as it is called, can be done rapidly. The hoe-gang pass
along, and break up the line of young plants by " chopping
out" a gap of, say a foot or more, thus leaving the stand
in clumps of three or four together, at intervals of from
twelve to twenty or thirty inches according to the exuber-
ance of the soil.

When the plants have sprouted in great uniformity, this
operation is almost wholly mechanical, and can be done
very fast ; but where the stand is irregular, considerable
judgment must be constantly exercised in sparing only the
most thrifty plants, and such as are most exactly in line.
As a rule, it does not pay to be very particular this time
over the crop. Let the hoes pass on rapidly, killing the
grass that is nearest the plants, and calculating to get over
the field in a week, if the weather is fair.

COTTON CULTUEE. 25

It may be here remarked that rapid movement, and a
handling which is brisk, rather than dainty and particular,
is the best on most soils. It will not do to linger. While
you are bestowing abundant care upon one side of your
field, the other side may suffer a set-back from which it
will never entirely recover. It is now the first of May,
#nd you have been once over your crop, but there is no
time for pausing. While the hoe-gang are in their last
rows, let the plows go right back to the side where the
planting began, and start in for another working. This
time the dirt must be thrown up from the middles toward
the plants, yet not so as to choke them or bury the roots
too deeply. Let the hoes follow, cutting away all the
plants but two, the most thrifty of each clump, and throw-
ing a little soft, fresh earth around those that stand, and
destroying all the grass and weeds. This working should
be careful, the most so, in fact, of any which the crop re-
ceives. Very much, however, depends upon the season.
If, just at this time, say from the first to the twentieth of
May, there are frequent rains, followed by sultry weather,
the grass will grow apace, and the planter must use his
discretion as to what part of his farm may be suffering
most.

His corn, too, needs attention about this time, but if he
must neglect one or the other, experience has shown that
corn is much the hardier of the two, at least in a struggle
with grass and weeds. Cotton is jealous and exacting in
its nature ; it must have attention, and dies for want of it ;
or, if the plant does not die amid the grass, it soon looks
yellow and sickly, and suffers a stunting which will abridge
its bearing time three weeks or a month.

By the twentieth or twenty-fifth of May, the industrious
planter has probably been twice over his crop, and the
plants are thinned out to the final or permanent stand.
The rest is now comparatively easy. The plows must con-
tinue to run until the middles are all broken out ; but here
2

26 COTTON CULTURE.

it may be remarked that the cultivation varies with the
season, and with the situation of the land. In a summer
blessed with the usual rainfall, the plowing goes on,
the dirt being thrown up from the middles to the beds.
If, however, the rainfall is excessive, so as to form a crust
around the roots, it is advisable to carry a light plow near
the stand so as to break up this crust, and allow the air.
and sun to strike upon the roots of the plant.

If, on the other hand, the season is uncommonly dry, it
is best to put a larger plow into the middles, and throw
up a ridge of dirt that will to some extent protect the
roots. But on these points, " doctors disagree," and first-
rate planters differ in practice. The opinion is almost uni-
versal, however, especially in cultivating the alluvions and
the black lands, that the tendency of the plowing should
be constantly towards the ridge, and not away from it.

Cotton is a plant that loves heat, and does not demand
large supplies of moisture. The climate, or the distribu-
tion of rain with sunshine, is a matter which the planter
cannot control ; he can only take it into account in choos-
ing the region where he would have his farm located.
After the plant is six inches high, it is really surprising how
little rain will make a crop. An excess of moisture, or
heavy rains followed by a fierce sun on flat lands, when
the plant is young, is likely to breed lice upon it. This is
the first enemy from the insect world that the planter has
to meet. A few weeks later, the same state of things will
produce rust upon cotton. The diseases and insects de-
structive of the cotton plant are fully described in a sub-
sequent part of this treatise, and all that need be said
here is that brisk working is almost the only remedy in
the planter's power. Let him stir the earth actively, and
raise the ridge so as to keep standing water away from the
roots of the plant.

As to the shape and weight of the plows that are used
in cultivating a crop of cotton, there is much variety of

COTTON CULTURE. 27

opinion, as well as much room for improvement. The
ordinary light wooden plow, with a moulding board of
oak faced with iron, of easy draught, and making a furrow
two or three inches deep, answers all the purposes of the
cotton grower quite well. Planters differ, also, as to the
propriety of ever plowing deep, except the first time when
the beds are made. Certain it is that very fine crops are
habitually made by the use of small, shallow running
plows.

After the middles are broken out, it is clear t£at some
form of implement which shall scrape or break up a, con-
siderable surface, may "be used with advantage. A favorite
plow, if such it may be called, among the planters in the
Gulf States, is the sweep or Eagle. It is made by fitting
flanks or wings to the side of the common scooter or bull

Fig. 2.— COTTON SWEEP.

tongue plow, in such a way as to carry a cutting edge
about an inch beneath the surface. It displaces the earth
very little, but is an excellent weed-killer, and tends to
throw the earth from the middles up to the rows. These
wings are made to extend so that in ordinary four-foot
rows, once passing over the soil will be sufficient. The
cotton sweep represented in Fig. 2, is one of those offered

28

COTTOX CULTURE.

in the market, and is constructed on much the same
principle as here described. Some prefer the ordinary
corn-cultivators, and on light lands where it is not im-
portant to "bed high, they are probably every way as good
as the sweep. The principal thing is, that whatever tool
you may select should be kept briskly moving. After
the second working of the cotton crop, the hoe may to a
great extent be dispensed with, but the plow can by no
means be laid aside even though the weeds and grass are

Fig. 8.— THE COTTON FLOWER.— (Sea Island.)

subdued. During June and the early part of July it is
important to press the growth of the plant, and nothing
does this so effectively as frequent stirring of the soil.
As a rule, the planter should manage so as to get over

COTTON CULTURE.

29

his crop once in two weeks in new, rough, and grassy
lands, or when the season is uncommonly wet.

In a favorable season, once in three weeks will suffice.
A favorable season for cotton is one in which the principal
rainfall comes in early spring, and the summer which
follows has few rainy days, but short though frequent
showers.

In June and July, especially, a long wet spell is injurious,
as also are all sudden and great variations in the amount
of moisture. On cotton planted early in April and well
tended, the blossoms begin to show in the first days of June.
No crop cultivated in this country is so beautiful as cot-
ton. During the month of June the cotton fields present
the appearance of vast flower gardens. The blossom is
something like that of the hollyhock, and its peculiarity is
the change of color that takes place from day to day. A

flower will open in
the morning of a
pale straw color, by
noon it will be pure
white, in the after-
noon of a faint pink,
and the next morn-
ing a clear pink. Sea
Island cotton, how-
ever, gives a bloom
that is always a pale
yellow.

As the flowers fall
off, the "forms," as
they are called, or
the young bolls, be-
gin to grow rapidly.

Fig. 4. — THE BOLL KEAKLY HIPE.

At first they are somewhat angular in shape, and the en-
veloping leaf forms a sort of tuft or ruffle at the base. As it
B wells, the lines* grow rounder, though it never becomes

30 COTTON CULTURE.

quite spherical. Great changes in the degree of moisture
are now very mischievous. A copious rain, followed by
hot sun in the latter part of June and in July, will cause
the plant to throw out a great number of forms, and the
planter's prospects are flattering. But if the heat con-
tinues for ten days or two weeks without timely showers,
the plant seems to feel that it has undertaken too much,
and sheds a great number of its forms. This shedding,
however, will be checked by a moderate shower ; but a
copious rain, followed by drouth, will cause the same
phenomenon again. When the plant approaches maturity
in size, that is to say, when the branches are beginning to
interlock across the middles, it is doubtful whether the
plow can be of much benefit. Deep plowing at this stage
is clearly injurious. Besides the principal or tap-root of
the cotton plant, which runs directly down, it sends off
side shoots or sprangles, not so many or so long as those
of corn, but enough to be much mangled and broken by a
plow, or any other implement, that runs more than two
inches below the surface. The breaking of these roots,
and putting out of new ones, checks the advance of the
crop, and tends to produce a fresh or second growth, the
bolls of which will be immature at the coming of frost.

The true policy is to push the growth of cotton just as
rapidly as possible until the branches interlock, and then
let the vigor of the plant go to making and perfecting
bolls.

The old and established routine among the planters of
the Gulf States is as described above, and may be condensed
into a formula as follows :

First. — In two weeks after planting bar off ; that is, run
a light plow close to the young plants, cutting away the
grass, and throwing dirt from the row. The hoes follow
and chop out, leaving clumps of five or six plants a foot
and a half apart.

Second. — Ten days or two weeks after,, mould or dirt

COTTOX CULTURE. 31

the cotton ; that is, let the plows throw the mould up to
the row, the hoes to follow thinning the plants to a stand,
and leaving everything clean and smooth. The plows keep
running till the middles are all broken out.

After this, from the last of May on, the cultivation is
mainly with the plow, sweep or cultivator, the hoes going
rapidly over and thinning out if the stand appears too
thick. '

I have known excellent crops raised where this routine
v, MS very much modified. For instance, a planter near a
great river may be occupied during April and a part of
of May in building a levee to keep the water off his
fields. It may be the middle of May before he goes
over his crop the first time. In that case he had better
cut away to a stand the first time over, and at the same
time break out his middles. Where the first cultivation
is thus thorough, the subsequent workings may be very
rapid, and one hoeing make a good clear crop. But this
can only be on old land that has been carefully cultivated
for many years, till the weeds and grass are well
killed out. As a rule, and in four cases out of five, ten
days of the moist, hot weather, characteristic of the spring
months in the Cotton States, will make afield look " hairy,"
and the plows must be hastened into it.

As the summer solstice approaches, and during the fierce
heat of July and the early part of August, care must be
taken for the comfort of both the laborer and his mule.
The plowman cannot move to the field too early. At the
first gleam of dawn, let him lay the plow-line over his neck,
and get his animal between the cotton rows. But he
should come in early from the midday heat. Unless the
crop is suffering, let him knock off at eleven o'clock, and
have a nooning of three or four hours, during which the
horse or mule may cool off in the shade, and be in a con-
dition to eat heartily of dry fodder with some corn. If
possible, and with ten mules to a hundred acres, it can be

32 COTTOX CULTURE,

done, the plowman should shift his harness to another ani-
mal in the afternoon, and thus keep the condition of his
stock well up. A brisk pace before the plow should be
insisted upon. As a general thing, the resistance of a
small plow or sweep in the light friable soil where cotton
flourishes, is not more than fifty pounds, often not more
than twenty-five, so that when the rows are straight and
even, a good animal can keep up a pace of three miles an
hour. So with the hoes. Two rapid though somewhat
careless workings are better than one that is slow and
thorough ; for until the plant is nearly grown, it cannot
have the dirt stirred around it too often.

The chief improvement on the old modes of culture that
can be made is in the rapidity and evenness of planting,
as mentioned in the foregoing chapter, and in the first
working.

Where the row of young plants is straight at the first
working, that is, at the time of the appearance of the third
leaf, ifTequires but little thought to see that some imple-
ment could be devised to throw the dirt away, and kill
the grass on each side at the same time. The Shanghai
plow, as it is not very elegantly called, proposes to do
this, and some planters who have used it, speak highly of
the invention. It consists of two small plows fastened to
one beam, one throwing a furrow to the right, the other
to the left, and leaving a clear space of about six inches
between them. It should be drawn by tAVO horses walk-
ing on each side of the row, while the plow moves on the
crest, the line of young plants entirely guarded by the
open space between the two shares. Some planters have
found that the same result may be accomplished by taking
out the forward hoes of a common cultivator, and keeping
it astride the bed.

We give here a cut and description of one of the Cot-
ton-seed Planters that are before the public, and which
promises well, though as yet it has been tested by but

COTTOX CULTURE.

33

few cotton growers. Those who have used this speak
emphatically in its praise. That implement which proves
itself best adapted to the work to be done, will of course
find favor, and there are several cotton-seed planters which
have not yet been fairly tested.

The accompanying cut represents a barrel-shaped re-
volving seed-box, (7, with a shaft or axle running through
its centre, to which the wheels are attached, and the re-
volving movement keeps the seed constantly in motion.
It is distributed evenly, or properly separated in the row,

i£. 5. — rSGEKSOLL'S REVOLVING COTTOX SEED PLANTER.

Patented June 2oth, 1867.

through a series of inner openings and one outer opening
on the under side, which is provided with a lever and slide,
and the quantity of seed discharged is regulated by mov-
ing the slide lever G. The distribution of the seed is
thus accomplished by a mechanical movement, very sim-
ple, effectual, and certain, and no complication of gear-
work or springs to get out of order.

The coulter, A.^ is used when necessary to clear away
stalks, vines, etc., on the surface.

The furring-wheel, F, marks the ground more or less
deep where the seed is to fall.
2*

34

COTTON CULTURE.

The drag-bar, .Z), has two adjustable covering shares,
-Z? j5, which will run over obstructions without catching,
and cover the seed well and evenly.

The lever, JET, raises both furring-wheel and drag-bar
off the ground, when not wanted.

By reversing the form of the seed-box, so that the seed
will fall from both ends, a machine is made by which two
rows are planted at once. In this case, the horse travels
between the rows, the man rides on the machine, the
wheels running on the ridges, and the seed is dropped just
inside of each, and covered as shown above. By this
simple and desirable improvement, one man can plant 15
to 20 acres per day, and it is a matter of great importance
that the planting be accomplished as soon as possible after
the ground is ready for the seed.

These machines are manufactured in a substantial and
durable manner by Ingersoll & Dougherty, Green Point,
Kings Co., L. I.

Fig. 6.— FOSTER'S COTTON SEED PLANTER.

Fig. 6 represents Foster's Cotton Seed Planter, as sold
by R. H. Allen & Co., of New York. The implement is
the invention of Newton Foster, of Palmyra, N. Y., and

COTTON CULTURE. 35

was put upon the market in 1860, when a few were sold.
Orders now coming from localities where these were sent,
in absence of other testimony, indicate that it gives some
satisfaction. The seed, as it comes from the gin, is put
into the conical hopper and distributed with considerable
uniformity, though in rather large quantity, by curved
arms revolving on the bottom and pressing the seeds out
through openings in the base of the cone, whence they
are conducted by a funnel to the drill, which is opened and
covered by the machine in its passage.

The best mode of planting and cultivating a cotton crop,
implements and all considered, may be briefly described
as follows ; it being understood that the land is capable
of producing a bale to the acre with the season favorable.

Break up the whole surface early in March, and bed up
for the rows, placing them four or four and a half feet apart.
On the first of April, run a small harrow along the top of
the bed, follow it by a triangular piece of wood that will
make a straight, well defined trench, and drop the seeds,
after being soaked in a fertilizing mixture and rolled in
ashes and plaster, at intervals of two or three inches ;
cover with a board that shall leave a smooth, rounded
surface.

When the third leaf appears, use a Shanghai plow or
some similar implement that will straddle the row, and
clean away the grass and weeds on both sides at once.
Let the hoes follow, cutting out to a stand, and use sweeps
or light plows in breaking out the middles.

Go over the crop once in fifteen days with the plow, and '
follow with the hoe, if necessary, till the plant is so far
grown that the branches begin to interlock across the
middles. Then " lay by." Your crop is assured unless
damaged or destroyed by the boll worm or the army worm,
or killed by a premature frost.

36 COTTON CULTUKE.

CHAPTER IV.

COTTON PICKING.

Early in August the fortunate and enterprising planter
will walk in from a survey of his crop with two or three
open bolls in his hand. His harvest is approaching. He
plans to have his fodder pulling done in a week, if not al-
ready over, and he looks after his sacks and baskets. A
yard and a half or two yards of strong Lowell, made into a
wide-mouthed sack, and furnished with a broad double
strap to go over the neck, is provided for every hand on
the place.

The mouth or opening should be made so as to hang
open, convenient for the picker. A cord or rope, as big as
the little finger, sewed all around the top on the outside,
helps keep the bag open. The length of the strap and
depth of the bag should be carefully adjusted to the size
and figure of the laborer, for the planter can ill afford to
waste the strength, or needlessly multiply the motions of
a picker. Each hand should also have his basket. These
are made of wide, white oak splits, coarse in texture, not
very heavy, and capable of holding about four bushels.
It is very well to have each sack and each basket branded
or otherwise marked with the name of the laborer, as it
prevents confusion, and it is well known that a workman
is always better satisfied to feel that he has absolute and
certain control of his tools.

As soon as you can look down between two rows of
cotton, and count half a dozen open bolls, start in the
pickers. They will get more than it seems likely that
they would, and, if active, will probably come out with
forty or fifty pounds. From this time on till nearly Christ-
mas the one great business on a cotton plantation, to which
everything else must yield, and in which every available
finger should be employed, is picking. There is no crop

COTTON CULTURE.

37

known, at least in this country, of which the harvesting is
so long and monotonous. One boll is just like another, one
row the fac simile of its neighbor. There is no science or
ingenuity that has been brought, or is likely to be made
effectual in very much modifying, abridging or lightening

Fig. 7. — THE COTTON PLANT.

this labor. In the nature of things, it must be done by the
fingers, and by the fingers only, in order to be done well.
The green seed or Mexican and Petit Gulf cotton, which is
the variety chiefly cultivated in this country, when fully
mature, opens its burr or shell quite wide, and the mass of
cotton within gradually falls outward, and droops by the
weight of the seeds. At some periods of the picking sea-

38 COTTOX CULTURE.

son, for instance during the month of October, these open
bolls, with the handful of snowy fibre hanging loose and
fleecy, sometimes six or eight inches downward from the
stem, present a beautiful and interesting sight.

It seems like very easy work to gather a material which
shows itself in such abundance as fairly to whiten the field,
but let the skeptic or the grumbler take a bag on his
shoulder, and start in between a couple of rows. He will
find, upon taking hold of the first boll, that the fibres are
quite firmly attached to the interior lining of the pod, and
if he makes a quick snatch, thinking to gather the entire
lock, he will only tear it in two, or leave considerable adher-
ing to the pod. And yet he may notice that an experienced
picker will gather the cotton, and lay his fingers into the
middle of the open pod with a certain expertness which
only practice gives ; the effect of which is to clear the
whole pod with one movement of the hand. Even long
practice does not enable every laborer to become a rapid
picker, no more than every printer is a fast compositor.
There is a knack in cotton picking as in type setting, which
cannot be acquired by all. Women generally make the
fastest pickers, and next to them will be found the small,
compact young man, weighing about a hundred and forty
pounds, and not more than five feet eight inches in height.
Good pickers are generally quiet, sometimes not speaking
a word from one end of the row to the other. They are
persons who habitually keep their minds directly on the
thing in hand, and who, by the constitution of their bodies,
enjoy the intensity of swift motions, and naturally love to
accomplish a good deal in what they are doing. When
the bag attains the weight of, say twenty-five pounds or
more, there should be a convenient arrangement for trans-
ferring its contents to the basket. It is here that the skill
and calculation of a planter are manifested. For instance,
if you set your baskets beside one of the plantation roads,
and start your hands in to go from there to the other side

COTTON CULTURE. 39

of the field and back, they may gather twenty-five pounds
in the outward tiip. Then coming back to the baskets,
they will gather twenty-five more. It is easy to see that
the last half of the load will be collected with very much
more fatigue and inconvenience than the first half; for, in
addition to the labor of picking, the laborer has to carry
on his homeward trip twenty-five pounds weight which is
continually increasing until it becomes fifty before he is
relieved of it. Picking, though not heavy work, is tire-
some, and in the last degree monotonous, so that regard
for the comfort of the laborer, as well as desire to advance
the work, will suggest that the planter make every possible
arrangement to relieve and lighten the task, and enable
the picker to take his work at the very best advantage.

Let the field be divided up by lanes and -roads in such
a way that the picker will never carry much weight in his
bag. The bags are emptied into the basket as soon as
filled, and it is desirable that the hands should keep along
together so as to come out about the same time. In fact,
it is policy to let the fast pickers work some on the rows
of the young and slow pickers. This gives encouragement,
keeps the gang of laborers together, and stimulates the
slower ones to keep up. Nothing is more disheartening
to a young or feeble picker, than to find himself two or
three hundred yards in the rear of the main force, tired,
with a heavy bag, all the time painfully conscious of his
inferiority to the rest, and perhaps too frequently reminded
of it by harsh and discouraging words. Though too much
talking and singing must interfere with labor, it is earn-
estly recommended to every cotton grower to take care to
secure cheerfulness if not hilarity in the field.

Remember that it is a very severe strain upon the pa-
tience and spirits of any one, to be urged to rapid labor of
precisely the same description, day after day, week after
week, month after month. Humanity, to say nothing of
self-interest, (and here humanity and self-interest are iden-

40 COTTON CULTURE.

tical,) must suggest various cheap and harmless modes of
relieving the tedium of this kind of labor. Fo; instance,
let there be refreshments at the baskets, a dish of hot
coifee in a cool morning, or a pail of buttermilk in a hot
afternoon, or a tub of sweetened water, or a basket of
apples, so that when the gang come out from between
the rows, and empty their bags, they may for a few mo-
ments enjoy themselves, take a little rest, and indulge in
a harmless joke before setting in again. They will be cer-
tain to more than make up the time by the swiftness with
which their fingers will spring from one snowy boll to an-
other, and swiftness of movement is, of all things, what
you most need in order to harvest your crop in good time
and in good condition. This cannot be expected where
the spirits droop, and life is made to seem burdensome.
Additional wages should also be paid to the largest
pickers. It may be best, in some cases, to change the
terms of labor in the picking time, and pay so many cents
for every hundred pounds, but as the picking varies greatly,
according to the openness of the bolls, this is not so good
a plan as to give a bonus of so much for every ten pounds
over one hundred or one hundred and fifty or two hun-
dred, which the picker brings in at night. Care should
be taken also, to abridge all the labor that is done after
the picking ceases at night. The health of your force re-
quires this, for during the principal part of the picking
season, the contrast between the temperature of midday
and after nightfall is very great, and chill and fever must
follow where a person is exposed to both without corres-
ponding change of dress. The practice on a great number
of the plantations in the Gulf States, under the old regime,
was decidedly faulty in this respect.

The hands were expected to be in the field at early
dawn, and commence picking as soon as they could see.
In September, and much more so in October, and the fol-
lowing months of autumn, the dews are heavy and cold.

COTTON CULTURE. 41

The clothing becomes wet, and the frame chilled in the
raw, morning air. But, soon after sunrise, the temperature
begins to rise rapidly, and by ten o'clock the thermometer
may stand between seventy and eighty degrees. This
degree of heat continues for several hours, but declines
very fast at sunset, so as to be as low as forty by the time
the stars appear. The cotton field will naturally be situated
on the lowest lands, and at night the malarious air falls,
so as to make them the most unwholesome of any in the
vicinity. The effect of exposing laborers daily to such
vicissitudes can easily be imagined.

About nine o'clock in the morning, one and another of
a gang of laborers would come out of the field, sick with
a violent chill. This would be followed by a high fever,
and the hand kept from earning anything for three or four
days, and often a week.

There is no time in the year when the cotton grower
can so ill afford to have his force diminished, as in the
picking season. Labor is then everywhere in demand.
Good pickers can always command high wages, and every-
body that can work is then occupied.

Let the planter remember that an ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure. Coffee is the most agreeable
preventive of miasmatic disease, and quinine the most
effective. In picking time, every plantation on low lands
should be supplied with both, and should use the former
with liberality, and the latter in moderation.

Let the pickers have the sunlight upon them the whole
time of their being at work. Kindle a fire at the baskets
before they go out, set on a big pot or kettle of coffee, and
have it boiling before sunrise. Give each hand a half pint
of it, and with it a hard cracker, a roast potato, or a piece
of bread. Then, at eight, provide breakfast. Let the
work be brisk till nearly sunset, pausing only for dinner,
and manage to have the day's picking weighed and stored

42 COTTON CULTURE.

away in the gin-house or in cribs, made for the purpose,
before the dew falls upon it.

Though such is not the custom, probably, there is no
time so favorable for sorting and trashing cotton, as when
it is first picked. It is less matted then than at any sub-
sequent handling, and the particles of leaf and stalk and
dirt are not entangled in the fibre, as they afterwards be-
come. Instead of weighing the baskets, each hand, as he
comes out, can hang his bag upon the hook of a spring
balance before he empties it. Then let an invalid, an old
person, or a woman, sit by the baskets, and sort over and
trash the contents of each bag.

Cotton of the Mexican, Petit Gulf, and Okra varieties,
(all of which are " green seed " cottons, differing very little
in appearance,) will naturally class into four grades, as it
comes from the field.

First. — The fine, long stapled cotton, clean, dry, and
silken to the touch. This will greatly predominate in the
early pickings, before the frosts and the heavy fall rains
occur.

Second. — The short, kinky bolls, that have been bored
by the boll worm, and not quite killed, or which came late,
and were unclenched by the frost, or which grew under
the disadvantage of excessive or irregular moisture.

Third. — Trashy cotton. This abounds after the heavy
frosts, and the trash consists of minute fragments of leaves
and stems, that become hopelessly mixed with the fibres,
so as never to be entirely removed. They cause the small
black specks that abound in the coarser varieties of Lowells
and Osnaburgs.

Fourth. — Dirty cotton. This comes in after heavy rains,
accompanied by winds, which have blown out the contents
of the pods, and beaten it into the" earth, or driven sand
all through the fibres.

During the months of September and October, there is
no need of having much trashy or dirty cotton. That which

COTTON CULTUKE. 43

is kinky or imperfectly developed, should be carefully
separated from the best, and either kept by itself or thrown
with the other low grades. The manufacturer can use it
in making strong, coarse fabrics.

The cotton of long staple and high grade, should not be
allowed to become damp with dew, but taken while still
warm and dry, and stored in a shed or in the gin-house,
and lie a month or two before it is ginned. This gives the
oil in the seeds time to ascend into the fibres, thus impart-
ing a fine, pale, straw color, which the manufacturer loves
to see, and also increasing the weight.

It is almost impossible, after the heavy frosts, to pick
cotton free of trash, and where the crop is large, more than
half of it may come under this description. In some con-
ditions of the market, planters find the difference between
trashy and clean cotton so little, as to discourage them
from efforts to send a fine article to market. But, in gen-
eral, moderate painstaking will enable the grower to com-
mand from two to five cents more per pound.

The thoughtful planter will also manage so as to have
the cotton handled as few times as possible, both to econo-
mize labor, finish work as early as possible, and prevent
his staple from becoming matted and dirty. Where ten
baskets are to be emptied twice a day, there is no need of
pouring them into a great box wagon, stamping down, and
then unloading, by filling the basket again at the crib or
gin-house. When the work is in a remote field, and the
weighing is done by torchlight, the hands about the
wagons may not get their suppers till eight or nine o'clock.

Where the roads are good, an excellent plan is to couple
the fore and hind wheels of a wagon with a pole of proper
length, lay t\vo other poles or long planks on the axle-
trees, set the basket on them, and empty at the gin-house.
If the weighing is done in a bag, this is entirely practicable,
and allows all the hands to get to their houses in half an
hour after they came out from the rows. Where the num-

44 COTTON CULTURE.

her of baskets is -large, some other plan can easily be de-
vised by one who is studying how to get the greatest
amount of work done 'in the shortest time, and with the
least wear of muscle.

The month of October is the height of the picking
season in the best cotton regions. Many fields that were
rapidly picked early in September, are now literally " white
for the harvest." Now the planter cannot urge his work
too zealously. But let him not, in his pushing, encroach
upon the hours of relaxation and sleep. His rule
should be : " Gather no cotton upon which the sun is not
shining, and to pay high for fast picking rather than for
night work."

At times, in the picking season, it will be advisable to
divide the force, especially where it is large, into "fast
pickers" and "the trash gang," instructing the former to
press along, and gather rapidly all the fair clean cotton
that is hanging open on the upper branches of the bush,
the others to follow, gleaning all that remains, the imper-
fect bolls, that which has fallen to the ground, or been
trailed in the dirt.

The picking season lasts from three to four months, in-
cluding all of September, October, and November, and
frequently a part of August and December. But where
cotton opens early, there is no reason why it should not be
nearly all gathered by the tenth of December.

In the older regions of the South, as Georgia and South
Carolina, it has been the usual practice to weigh but once
a day, and to require a hundred and fifty pounds as a
day's work. In good open cotton, a fast hand will gather
this amount in five or six hours, but in the beginning, as at
the close of the season, the whole day will be consumed
in picking this number of pounds.

It requires rather more than three times the weight of
lint to make a given amount of unginned cotton. Thus,
from fifteen to eighteen hundred pounds of cotton in the

COTTON CULTURE. 45

seed will be required in making a bale of the usual weight.
Ten good hands can pick a bale per day. Hence, if ten
hands have planted a hundred acres, which proves a good
crop, they will consume a hundred days in picking it out.

CHAPTER Y.

GINNING, BALING AND MARKETING.

In detailing, step by step, vthe process of cotton raising,
we have hitherto been dealing, as it were, with fixed quan-
tities. The directions given for the stock and implements
of a cotton farm, the preparation of the soil, the selection
of seed, the planting and cultivation, and, as in the last
chapter, the picking and storing of cotton in the seed,
apply with hardly any variations to the production
of the crop wherever it is extensively raised in the
United States. No material changes can be made in this
routine, whether you have selected a warm and sunny
slope in southern Illinois, or drop your seed into the rank
and teeming soil of Louisiana, in fields bordered by rows
of orange trees.

We speak now not so much of what must be clone, as of
what may be done. The producer now has in his sheds,
or, perhaps, in cribs in the field, a large amount of cotton
in the seed. When the picking season comes to an end, to-
ward the middle of December, he may have a hundred
and forty thousand pounds ; that is on the supposition that
his ten hands have been successful in the cultivation of a
hundred acres. Every thrifty planter, however, must be
supposed to have anticipated the marketing of his crop,
and to have made, at least, some preparation in the earlier
part of the season for ginning and baling.

If there was no gin on the place, it is fair to suppose
that he bought one in August, while the crop was in the

46 COTTON CULTUEE.

interval between cultivation and harvest, and made arrange-
ments, more or less complete, for the easy and rapid hand-
ling of his crop when picked. These arrangements may
be of various degrees of rudeness, from a simple open shed,
sufficient only to shelter his machinery, or a big-walled
tent, to a large, complete, and perfectly appointed gin-
house, costing three or four thousand dollars.

As a general thing, horse-power is employed in ginning
American cotton. On very large plantations, where the
amount raised approximates to a thousand bales, a steam
gin is in most cases erected. These are matters that de-
pend almost entirely upon the amount of capital that one
brings to the business, the permanence with which the
planter expects to be engaged, in cotton-raising, and the
depth and richness of the land he is cultivating.

The principle of the cotton-gin is simple, and its mechan-
ism is not complicated. The ingenuity and patience dis-
played by Eli Whitney in inventing and perfecting this
machine, and the wonderful effect it has had in the social
and political economy of the world, are spoken of more
fully in the closing chapter of this treatise. But at this
point in cotton producing, every good planter must become,
to some extent, a mechanic ; for no person can successfully
operate with a machine like the cotton-gin, who does not
quite thoroughly understand the precise mode in which it
operates, when it does the work well, and when imper-
fectly, and how its different parts are to be adjusted so as
to perform their office in the best manner.

Take a wooden cylinder, say four feet long, and five
inches in diameter. Fasten upon it a series of small cir-
cular saws, say nine inches in diameter, so that the edge
will rise two inches above the cylinder all around. Let
there be eighty of these saws ; they will be set upon the
cylinder a fraction over half an inch apart. The teeth of
these saws are filed, so as turn from you as you stand be-
fore the cylinder. Now place your cylinder, thus armed

COTTON CULTTTEE. 47

with its thousands of little saw teeth, upon bearings, and
let it revolve, bringing a considerable mass of cotton in
the seed to press against these teeth. It is easy to see that,
if the cylinder revolves rapidly, the teeth must very soon
pull off the lint from the seeds to which it is attached.
These teeth play between steel bars, which allow the lint,
but not the seed to pass.

Now below the saws fit a set of stiff brushes upon an-
other cylinder, and let them revolve in the opposite direc-
tion. Their effect will be to brush off and clear away
from the saw-teeth of the cylinder the lint which they
have just pulled from the seed/ You need now a fan, re-
volving so as to -make a blast of air, in order to throw the
light and downy lint, which has thus been liberated, to a
convenient distance from the revolving saws and brushes.

These three are the essential parts of the Whitney cot-
ton-gin. All the rest is cabinet work. A number of im-
provements have, of late years, been made in this machine,
the effect of which is to pick the cotton more perfectly
from the seed, to prevent the teeth from cutting the
staple, and to give greater regularity to its operations.
But when you have purchased a gin, the principal consid-
eration will be, how to place it in such a wa»y that the
cotton may be brought to it with the least labor, and how
the lint may be taken to the screw, or other arrangement
for pressing, with the greatest convenience.

The power for driving the gin is produced by two or
more horses acting on an upright, which revolves on an
iron pivot. Horizontal arms extend, say, ten feet. There
are, usually, four of these arms, to which the horses are
attached. At the upper end of this vertical revolving
shaft, is a large cog-wheel, say twenty feet in diameter,
the teeth of which play into a ratchet wheel, to the axle
of which a large drum is attached. This gearing gives
sufficient rapidity of motion to the drum, from which a
band passes directly to the gin.

48

COTTON CULTUEE.

A. and IB represent respectively the first and second
stories of a gin-house. V S (Fig. 8) is a vertical shaft, with
horizontal arms, to which horses are attached at h and A,
which pull around in the dotted path. At the south end
of the building, 8 represents an iron screw working in a
strong frame, and driven upward by a mule, m, towards
.P, the packing-box, which opens in the second story.

6r, in this story, (Fig. 9,) is the gin, which discharges gin-
ned cotton into L the lint room, where it is picked up by the

Fig. 8

Fiff. 9.

armful, and thrown into the packing-box ; W, W, TFJ TFJ
are windows, so placed as to throw strong light on 6r, the
gin, and P, the press ; the short lines, M, M, represent a
double open staircase, up which the seed-cotton is carried
on the shoulders of the laborers. They go up one flight,
and down the other, so as not to interfere with each other.
In the latter part of the picking season, after the fall
rains set in, much of the cotton which comes from the

^

COTTOX CULTUlrE^V /

field will be damp, not to say wet, ^n'djnmch 01 tlfej

was picked dry, and has been stt&exJ .in ^tij$syp«r sheds, Vill^ .

be too damp for the gin. •/, ;

The rule is that no cotton is fit to gin utrfe^ tl
snaps brittle between the teeth. Hence a
paniment of every gin is a scaffolding, more or less
sive, upon which the cotton may be sunned. In most
cases, this scaffolding consists of boards rudely supported
on blocks or stakes driven in the earth, and, where the
amount of cotton to be sunned is not large, a permanent
and more expensive arrangement would hardly pay. But
on the lower bottoms of the Cotton States, what with the
heavy dews, frequent rains, and late picking, there is al-
ways a great deal of cotton on the scaffold. Hence it be-
comes important that it should be so arranged as to afford
the utmost convenience in handling; for every laborer
unnecessarily kept around the gin-house, is so much sub-
tracted from the picking force. There is no reason why
two hands, with a boy to drive the mules, should not con-
duct all parts of the ginning process, but the practice has
been to have three, four, and sometimes five hands, more
or less, busy about a gin-house.

The side view, presented on the next page, will give a
tolerably clear conception of a very convenient arrange-
ment for drying cotton.

The gin-house is presumed to stand north and south,
giving at its southern end a sunny exposure, where the
scaffold, S, is erected. It will be seen that this scaffold
extends from the left, or third story, in a gradual slope to
within six feet of the ground. It is supported by posts,
which should be charred at the lower end to prevent decay.
At the end next the building, it is high enough to enable
a loaded wagon to drive under, and discharge cotton that
is perfectly dry into either story of the gin-house. The
slope of the scaffold should be so gentle as to admit of
easy walking upon it, and should be roofed with some
3

50

COTTON CULTURE.

material as tin that has been sanded, or felt roofing covered
with gravel, so as not to become slippery, which would be
the case with shingles or boards. The shelter beneath this
scaffolding affords ample and convenient room for storing
a hundred bales of cotton.

When a load of cotton comes in from the field wet or
damp, it can be driven close alongside of this scaffold, and
rapidly unloaded. If the day is clear, a few hours of sun
will fit it for the gin, and the labor of putting it into bas-
kets, and carrying up the gentle slope into the loft of the

Fig. 10.— GIN-HOUSE WITH SCAFFOLD.

gin-house is very moderate. C C represents a broad sheet
of painted canvass, which is rolled around a pole after the
manner of a street awning. In clear weather this canvass
is kept snugly rolled at the upper end of the scaffolding,
just under the threshold of the loft door. In case of a sud-
den shower, instead of calling hands from the field to hurry
the cotton under shelter, two hands can take hoM of the
opposite ends of the canvass pole, and in two minutes
have everything on the scaffold securely protected from
wet. An arrangement of this sort is evidently a great
labor saver, and is almost equal to the addition of another
hand to the picking force.

These arrangements for ginning and baling cotton are

COTTOX CULTTKE. 51

described, not as being in the nature of things the best that
might be devised, but as those in common use throughout
the South.

None of the presses on the plantations are as effective
as they might be, and the result is that all of the crop that
is packed into the holds of ships at Charleston, Mobile,
New Orleans, and Galveston, three-fourths or four-fifths of
all the staple grown has to be pressed and bound over
again. The average expense of receiving, storing, pressing,
and binding over, hauling down to the wharves and deliv-
ering to the vessels, of a cotton crop, is two dollars per
bale, and almost the whole of this is unnecessary. The
number of bales received and shipped at New Orleans in
1860 was, in round numbers, a million. This million of
bales paid to draymen, shipping clerks, cotton-press men
and the owners of cotton sheds, and commission merchants,
two millions of dollars, all of which came out of the plant-
ers, and the greater part of which could have been avoided
by sending the cotton to market in compact, square bales,
thoroughly pressed, and well bound. Suppose, for in-
stance, a cotton grower, in some part of the Mississippi
Valley, produces annually five hundred bales, which he
sends to market in the usual way. At a moderate calcu-
lation he pays a dollar and a half a bale in New Orleans,
for having his cotton pressed over and for the hauling,
storing, and waste incident to that operation. Thus his
defective packing costs him seven hundred and fifty dol-
lars a year. Now, five hundred dollars would erect for
him a strong press, operating on the hydraulic principle, in
which he could make as small a bale as can be made in the
powerful steam presses of New Orleans. But he need not
resort to a hydraulic press. The patentees of several of
the improved hay and cotton-presses in use throughout
the Northern States, will agree for one hundred dollars
more than the cost of the common iron or wooden screw
arrangement, to put him up a press, simple in principle

52 COTTON CULTURE.

and easy in its operation, that will put four hundred pounds
of cotton into forty cubic feet, which is about the degree
of compression given by the steam press. There i's an-
other important advantage to be gained by putting the
cotton into small compact bales. Its freight will cost a
third or a half less, whether by car or steamboat, it will
waste less in handling, and, if bound with iron hoops, will
be in far less danger of destruction by fire.

Of late the iron hoop or tie has rapidly superseded the
rope in former use, and it has the recommendation of being
cheaper as well as every way better.

It makes a neat, firm looking bale, not liable to burst
from the untying or cutting of the ropes, and, as a grand
advantage, the iron hoops hold the cotton so compactly
that in case of a fire only the surface is scorched.

In general, the hoop used among planters is too narrow,
being less than an inch. If the cotton growers would use
better presses, so as to force the usual number of pounds
into a third or half less space than a four hundred-pound
bale usually occupies, and then confine it with eight to ten
hoops an inch or 'an inch and a quarter wide, the package
would leave the gin-house in a condition to make the trip
to Manchester or Lowell without damage from fire, water,
or rough and frequent handling.

Since the effect of the recent war in opening the South
to free labor, and the application of Yankee ingenuity in
overcoming the various problems and difficulties in cotton-
growing, several cotton presses, new in their design and
admirable in their principle, have been submitted to the
cotton growing community.

Among these one of the best is that patented in 1860, by
P. G. Gardner. The cut of this admirable press which faces
this page, needs but little explanation. The effect of turning
the large cast iron wheels on each side of the press, is to
move the screws c and d with great force in the direction
desired. These screws are fastened to a and #3 cast iron

COTTON CULTURE.

53

shafts, which move on the track laid for them by the
wheels at their ends.

At their upper ends, these shafts are connected by a
toggle-joint, above which is the follower, which moves up
and down in the packing-box. This cut represents the

Fig. 11. — P. G. GARDNER'S COTTON PRESS.

position of the machinery when the bale is compressed,
that is, when the toggle-joint and the follower are at
the top of the packing-box. By turning the wheels in
the opposite direction from which they were turned to
carry the follower up, a will be brought over to the left

54 COTTON CULTURE.

side of the press, and b to the right side. This will lower
the follower to the bottom of the packing-box, when it
may be filled with a new charge from the lint room,
beneath which it should be set up.

It will be seen at once by those at all familiar with the
mechanical principles, that a combination of the toggle or
elbow-joint with the screw and lever, gives immense power
to this press. And the power is applied in just the way to
have the greatest effect upon a material so elastic as cot-
ton. It is the last foot or two feet of the compression
that demands power. The old wooden or iron screw will
make a bale from three to four feet thick without much
difficulty. But this press will take an ordinary bale, and
compress it to a thickness of two feet, for it is the pecu-
liarity of the toggle-joint piece, that its power becomes
enormous when the two shafts that compose it approach a
perpendicular or straight line.

The size of a bale, when pressed by this machine, is five
and a half feet long, two wide, and about three feet high.
Within this space, which is almost exactly a cubic yard, or
twenty-seven solid feet, five hundred pounds can be com-
pressed by two stout men working for five minutes on the
wheels. Now, the average dimensions of the New Orleans
bale, which contains four hundred and fifty pounds, is
thirty-two cubic feet. That is; after the action of the im-
mense steam compress, the ordinary New Orleans bale of
commerce is five solid feet larger and fifty pounds lighter,
than the package which two hands can produce at the
plantation with this improved and powerful press.

The cut (Fig. 12) represents a Plantation Cotton Press,
which is worked exclusively by hand-power, with the bale
packed, sacked, and tied, and ready to be turned out. It
is made by Messrs. Ingersoll & Dougherty, Green Point,
Kings Co., N. Y. Other presses, to be worked by horse-
power, are made by the same parties, under patents issued
April 15, 1856; June 16, 1863; July 28, 1863; and Janu-

COTTON CULTURE.

55

aiy 24, 1865. The manufacture of this press was com-
menced in the spring of 1856. Since that time over 3000
of them have been put in use, and the very excellent rep-
utation which they have gained, as cheap, portable, and

Fig. 13. — INGERSOLL'S COTTON PRESS.

convenient presses, induces us to present it here as one of
the necessary, useful, and labor-saving machines, required
by the planter in preparing his crop for transportation and
a market.

Two hands only are required to work it, and will put

56 COTTON CULTURE.

up, in good shape and well packed, twenty or more bales
per day.

The press is made of any size or weight of bale requir-
ed, and when taken apart, it comprises 6 to 7 packages
convenient for handling and shipping, and hence is well
adapted to shipping to Central and South America, and
other foreign countries, where they are often taken on the
backs of mules to the interior of the country, and the cot-
ton packed and brought back to the coast in bales of
about 125 to 200 Ibs. each.

The "No. I Press makes a bale of 300 Ibs., or under, and
its gross weight is 800 to 1100 Ibs. This size is mostly
made for foreign shipment.

No. 2. — Weight of bale 400 Ibs. ; gross weight of Press
1600 Ibs.

No. 3. — Weight of bale 500 Ibs. ; weight of Press 1900
Ibs. Its portable form admits of its being set alongside
of the gin and close to the cotton, or on any floor of the
building.

When the irons get worn out or broken, duplicates can
be sent by Express to any part of the country, at little
expense. Catalogues with price-lists, etc., can be obtained
by addressing the manufacturers.

The cut (Fig. 13) represents Ingersoll's Bale Rope Tight-
ener, patented June 25th, 1867. The same parties also man-
ufacture the Iron Hoop and Wire Tightener. These are
cheap and very convenient tools for drawing rope, hoop,
or wire tight on cotton or hay bales. The cut shows the
application of the Bale Rope Tightener. Every person
baling cotton will find this a desirable tool. Fig. 2 shows
the point of the lever, with the clamps and the mode of
putting the rope through them.

The well-informed and successful cotton grower is more
than a mere routine agriculturalist. As he needs some
knowledge of mechanics, and facility in planning convenient
arrangements about his gin-house, so in securing the best

COTTON CULTURE.

57

price for his great staple, he requires to know some-
thing of the great laws of supply and demand in cot-
ton, so as to form a correct and intelligent judgment as to
whether he shall sell or hold.

Fig. 13.— IXGEBSOLL'S BALE ROPE TIGHTENEE.

It is of great importance that he establish with the mer-
chant and the broker a high reputation for honor and cor-
rectness in packing his staple, and preparing it for market.

When George Washington was largely engaged in to-
bacco growing, he shipped directly from the Potomac to
London. There the tobacco inspectors opened eacli hogs-
head to examine and pronounce upon its quality. After
3*

58 COTTON CULTURE.

opening a great many of Washington's hogsheads, they
were satisfied that he never sent anything but " prime ;"
so at length they gave over examining tobacco that came
with the brand " G. W."

This should be the ambition of every producer of a great
staple. His brand should be a pledge of high quality and
entire reliability as to the manner in which it is packed.
The planter should also graduate his expenses, and manage
his account current with his factor, in such a way as to be
able to take advantage of the market, and sell when he
chooses, not as soon as he can. He should keep posted as
to the cotton supply in England and elsewhere, and be
able to give his merchant sound instructions as to what to
do with his shipments.

The machinery by which the producer of cotton com-
municates with the spinner and weaver should be as simple
as possible.

Probably three-fourths of the crop is taken to market
on steamboats, which land often within a hundred yards
of the planter's door.

They then go down to the exporting cities, as Mobile,
New Orleans, Savannah, Galveston, and often pass directly
by the ships that have come from New York, Boston,
Liverpool, Havre, Antwerp, and St. Petersburg, and are
waiting to take in a cargo of cotton. ISTow, in the nature
of things, what reason is there why the steamboat should
not run alongside the ship, and discharge her cargo directly
into the hold of the sea-going vessel, a gang of stevedores
being at hand to stow it away, the agent of the foreign
purchaser being on board the ship, and sending back to
the planter an account of sale and bill of lading, with a
sight or a sixty or ninety day draft for the price ? How
much delay, commission, waste, brokerage, vexation and
loss might be avoided by a transaction so direct !

In that case, and at present prices, (December, 1866,)
the hundred bale cotton grower, whom we have been fol-

COTTOX CULTURE. 59

lowing in his routine of plowing, planting, cultivating,
picking, ginning, and pressing a crop, might, early in the
year following, put his cotton in a Liverpool bottom, and
receive his payment in a check on the Bank of England for
twelve thousand dollars in British gold.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COTTON PLANTER'S CALENDAR.

What follows is in the nature of a summary and reca-
pitulation of much that has been set forth in detail, in the
foregoing five chapters. It is calculated for about the
middle of the cotton belt, or the lands where cotton is pro-
duced, between the thirty-second and the thirty-fourth
degree of north latitude. Some other crops, such as corn,
peas, and oats are alluded to, as they are cultivated more
or less on every plantation.

JAXUAEY.

The gin is to be kept running most of the time during
this month on last year's crop. It is best to have a con-
venient scaffold arranged on the south side of your gin, of
nn easy slope, and passing directly to the gin loft, so that
cotton can be taken from the sheds or cribs, dried, and
carried up to where it will feed itself into the gin, or can
be pulled in by the operator before the stand.

Read the papers, keep informed as to rise or decline iu
the cotton market, the supply and demand.

Have a powerful press, sufficient to put four hundred
pounds into the space of forty cubic feet. Use wide iron
hoops, and plenty of them. Look well after the ends of
your bales, and see that they are perfectly snug.

60 COTTON CULTURE.

On pleasant days, the hands may be breaking down the
cotton stalks, or clearing new land.

This is a good time also to fill up washes and old gulches
in the field, and prevent little ones from growing any
larger. Cut down pine bushes, and lay them in the washes
lengthwise; cane from the cane-brakes answers the same
purpose very well. Take care of your cotton seed at this
time. That which is intended for planting, should be
stored in a shed or loft, where the air has free access, and
stirred to prevent fermentation. The rest should be care-
fully saved for manure. The ashes of it were found, by
one analysis, to contain fifty-five per cent of potash, and
if it is faithfully returned to the cotton field, and your
lands prevented from washing, cotton will be found a very
slow exhauster of the soil.

FEBRUARY

You must expect numerous and heavy rains this month,
but on porous soils, after the twelfth or fifteenth, it will be
dry enough to plow.

This is the proper time for projecting the crop of another
year, obtaining hands, fixing them in comfortable quarters,
and purchasing additional mules and other stock.

Cut and haul a supply of wood. Haul out your cotton
seed and other manures, and spread them on the fields.
Decide as to rotation of crops ; where you will have your
cotton, where your corn, oats, and sweet potatoes.

After the middle of the month, whenever it is dry enough,
let the two-horse plows be throwing up beds for the cot-
ton rows. Four feet apart on hill lands, and five or five
and a half in the swamp, is the rule.

Cotton that stands thick, will produce as many open bolls
before frost as that which is thinner, and it is the open
bolls before frost that will give you the best cotton.

Get in a few acres of oats.

COTTON CULTURE. 61

3IAKCH.

The first plowing continued briskly. Corn lands plowed
thoroughly, and oats sowed. Have a large kitchen garden,
raise plenty of cabbages, sugar beets, carrots, parsnips,
onions, okra, and melons.

A cotton soil and climate are exactly suited to melons,
and it will pay to put an acre in watermelons and can-
telopes*

This is a proper time for working plantation roads, filling
up the washes, and laying off circle ditches on hill lands.
By circle ditching and circle plowing, you can cultivate a
soil, that is as mellow as an ash heap, on a side hill, and
yet keep it from washing away.

Observation will teach you what foil a ditch may have,
and not wash. It is different in different soils. A fall of
an inch in ten feet is the rule that some follow.

If the season is early and dry, you can plant in the last
of March. It is desirable to get your corn planting out of
the way before you commence on cotton.

APEIL.

A busy month this for the cotton planter. He must
make every edge cut, particularly if he has grassy fields.
The first of the month will be taken up with cotton plant-
ing. You cannot be too thorough or particular in getting
in your seed. Aim to have mellow beds, and straight,
even rows. Run a fine-toothed harrow over the tops of
your beds, and fasten on the cross-piece, so as to project
behind the middle of the harrow, a triangular piece of
wood, with the edge down, so as to make a clean, even
trench for your seed, which should be soaked in a fertiliz-
ing mixture a day or two, and rolled, while damp, in ashes
:in<i plaster.

Drop your seeds at intervals of an inch or two in the
bottom of the little trench, and cover with a board attached
to a light plow, notched so as to fit the curve of the bed.

62 COTTON CULTURE.

As soon as your cotton is planted, go over your corn
for the first time, and turn immediately back to the cotton
field to give it the first working.

Try the Shanghai plow for the first working. Some
planters speak very highly of it. You may, perhaps, do
almost as well by taking out the three forward hoes of
your cultivator, and passing it along above the young
plants and astride of the row.

Let the hoes follow the plows, cutting away two breadths
of a common hoe, thus leaving a clump of plants at inter-
vals of about a foot and a half. In some cases, where your
plants are vigorous, and the season pushes, it may do very
well to cut away to a stand at once, or, at least, so as to
leave but two thrifty plants in a place. At all events,
keep down the grass. If you have to go over your crop
once in a week, get the grass under now, and it will not
give you much trouble during the rest of the season.

MAY.

Another crowding month on a cotton farm. Both crops,
your corn and your cotton, demand attention, and neglect
now can never be made up.

During the first half of May you will give the cotton its
most thorough working. Let the plows keep a brisk pace
if they have much ground to go over. They should go
around the first time moulding the rows, and be followed
close by the hoes, to uncover the plants that have been
buried by the plow running too near. Then the middles
should be broken out, and the crop left perfectly clean,
cut out to a permanent stand, and the ground all stirred.

After running two furrows to each row, so the hoes can
go over the crop, it may be advisable to put the plows into
the corn field, and let them go through that before break-
ing out the middles of the cotton. Some time must be
found also for the potato patch. Work them clean and

COTTON CULTURE. 63

hill up thoroughly. The vines will soon monopolize the
surface, and exclude the weeds and grass.

Towards the last of the month, get the plows back into
the cotton. The sweep is probably the best implement to
put into the field now. Any blacksmith can convert a
common bull-tongue or a scooter plow into a sweep or
eagle, by putting a wing to the lower part of the coulter,
two or three inches from the point. A good plowman can
carry his sweep within two inches of the line of plants
without killing any. This greatly abridges the labor of
the hoe hands.

JUXE.

In this month the cultivation of cotton must vary some-'
what with the season and the soil.

If you are planting on rolling or hilly land, and the
season is dry, throw up a considerable furrow from the
middle to the roots of the plant. On bottom land this is
unnecessary, for cotton on alluvial soil seldom suffers much
from drouth. On the other hand, on flat lands, if the
season is wet, you will have to throw up a ridge to pre-
vent water from settling around the roots.

The plows continue to run actively all this month, both
in corn and cotton. It is well to accustom the mules and
horses to a rapid walk between the rows. Use an animal
but half of these long hot days. Commence early, and give
a long nooning. Hold each plowman responsible for the
condition of his mule, and allow a bonus or extra wages
to the one that brings his animal out of the crop in the
best condition.

Look well after the comfort of man and beast these
blazing days, when the thermometer stands at 120° in the
field. Give the hands plenty of drink, but let it be acid-
ulated, such as vinegar and water, or buttermilk, some-
what diluted.

64 COTTON CULTURE.

JULY.

You will go over your corn for the last time this month,
if the season is dry. A stirring of the soil between the
rows will help it to resist the effect of the intense heat,
and prevent the lower leaves from " firing." Cotton needs
another plowing, but if the previous cultivation has been
thorough, the crop can be laid by the last of this month.

As soon as your corn is " past roasting ear," pull fodder.
As this work is by no means easy, and comes in the height
of midsummer heat, some of the hands are quite likely to
injure themselves unless special care is exercised.

Drenched as they are with perspiration, they must
drink frequently, and the water should never be cold. If
vinegar and a little sugar is added, all the better. There
is no use in pushing laborers now. A press of work is
soon to come, and you do not want to start a set of jaded
and half-sick hands to picking.

Some have doubted the propriety of stripping the leaves
from Indian corn before the ears are mature. You lose
a little in the weight of shelled corn and in its fattening
properties, but for the southern climate a more wholesome
corn is produced in this way, than by allowing the whole
plant to stand till dead ripe. It will not be so heating to
animals, and the bread made from it is lighter and more
palatable.

AUGUST.

The picking season is at hand. Store your dry fodder,
and get ready to send every hand into the cotton field.

About the middle of the month you will observe quite
a number of the lower or ground bolls open. As soon as
a picker can gather fifty pounds, the work of harvesting
begins. It will continue three and a half or four months.

This is the time of year to be on the watch against your

COTTON CULTURE. 65

two enemies, the cotton worm and the army worm. If
they make an attack in force, your crop will be swept
away almost as soon as Jonah's gourd. The army worm
is much less insidious in its advance than the cotton moth
or cotton caterpillar, and you can arrest the march of the
devouring army by a narrow, sharp cut ditch carried all
around the place. If you hear of the advancing host
from the south or south-west, lose no time in starting
your double plows in on the side of your field which is
threatened. Throw a furrow from the crop,, and let the
hoe and spade follow, clearing out and cutting down till
you have a perpendicular Avail of earth, from twelve to
eighteen inches high, facing the enemy. Feeble as this
earthwork appears to be, it is enough to stop the march.
As soon as the advance guard reaches your lands, how-
ever, a strict watch must be kept, lest at some point they
find a low place in the earthen wall or some means of
scaling it. It may be well to keep the double plows at
hand, in order to deepen and clear out the ditch as they
come piling into it.

The caterpillar, cotton worm or cotton moth, for each
of these names is applied to the same animal, appears also
in August. You will see a few pale brown millers or
moths flitting over the cotton field. By watching, you
may observe the insect selecting a leaf for her web or nest.
She will generally discover the place of her eggs by cut-
ting the midriff or largest fibre of the leaf, and bending it
over so as to form a little shelter tent, so to speak, for her
young. The eggs hatch in ten days, and the little worms
begin at once to devour the plant upon which they were
born. They eat constantly, day and night, growing rap-
idly to the length of about an inch and a quarter. The
time for fighting this enemy is as soon as you see the first
moth. They are clumsy and slow in their flight, so they
can be struck down with little paddles and killed. As
some will, of course, escape this attack, the planter should

66 COTTON CULTURE.

look carefully through the rows of his crop for the leaves
on which the eggs have been laid.

With a little practice, the eye becomes quick at detect-
ing the leaves that have been cut and bent over. These
should be carefully gleaned, put into the cotton bags, and
burned.

Some have succeeded in protecting a crop by catching
the moths in plates, half filled with a mixture of molasses,
vinegar, and cobalt, and exposed at numerous points over
the field.

Every preventive and each mode of attacking the enemy
should be employed. Some have destroyed a great num-
ber of these pests by building small fires in different parts
of the field, into which they plunge and perish. Others
plant white flags about the field, upon which it is thought
the fly deposits its eggs.

SEPTEMBER.

If your crop was rescued from the devourers, nothing
now remains but to press the picking as actively as pos-
sible. The best cotton is gathered in September and
October. Provide every facility for your hands, good bags
with open mouths, baskets, and a scale or balance that
weighs rapidly. Give hot coffee in the morning, especially
if you are on low land, encourage fast picking by corres-
ponding wages, and manage to keep them out of the night
air. You can ill afford to have hands out of the field now
with chill and fever.

OCTOBER.

The best month for picking. It is a remarkable set of
hands that can average two hundred pounds all around,
yet, among a force of twenty pickers, some will always
bring in more than that in open cotton.

COTTOX CULTUKE. 67

Keep the morale of your laborers at a high point. A
sad heart makes the motions slow. Hands will not pick
any the worse the next day for having danced till ten or
eleven o'clock the night before ; and, among Africans at
least, the best dancer is likely to be the best picker.

Unless your crop is very large, so as to need every finger
in your employ to pick it out, the best time for sorting the
cotton is when it is first picked. Before November you
will not have much inferior cotton. After frost and heavy
rains there will be many imperfect bolls t^hat yield a
crumpled or kinky staple, and much cotton will be beaten
out of the pods by driving rains, and made muddy by
earth dashed upon it, or sand driven into it. This can be
cleaned so as to be but little inferior to choice cotton, but
the two should not be mixed, as the trashy will lower the
price of the clean with which the buyer finds it mixed.

Many cotton growers have a " trasher," a simple ma-
chine, driven by a band from the drum, which cleans the
staple by whipping it against a series of pegs or teeth.

Trashy and dirty cotton ought to be dried and trashed
before being stored away for ginning.

XOVEMBER.

As the season grows cool, the picking at night and
morning is anything but pleasant.

Nothing will be gained in the end by gathering in a
cold and heavy dew. Let there be fires kindled at the
baskets, and in every manner seek the comfort of the
hands, for the staple which they are picking now is some-
what inferior, and their encouragement is that the long
pull of monotonous and wearisome labor is nearly over.
If the market is favorable, ginning is begun this month,
and often much earlier. A good eighty saw gin will pick
off less than a bale an hour, say eight bales in ten or twelve
hours. But this rapid ginning generally damages the
staple, and for that reason is not recommended.

68 COTTON CULTURE.

As a rule, it requires as many pickers as there are saws
on a cylinder to keep a gin constantly running. Thus
seventy-five or eighty pickers will bring in at night as
much as the gin will run out the next day. But it is al-
ways better to let the cotton remain in the seed a month
or more after being picked. The staple is of better color
and weight.

DECEMBEE.

By the middle of this month, the cotton is mostly picked.
]STow the corn and potatoes are gathered, and teams are
active in hauling the crop to a market or shipping point.
The baling is best done on damp or rainy days, as heat
and dryness tend to extract the oil from the fibre. In
some parts of the cotton region, it is advisable to put a
small force to pulling up and burning the stalks as soon
as picked, preparatory to another crop.

PART II.

DETAILS, DIFFICULTIES, IMPROVEMENTS, AND

STATISTICS RELATING TO COTTON GROWING IN

THE UNITED STATES.

CHAPTER I.

QUALITY, EXTENT, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COTTON.
LANDS OF NORTH AMERICA.

That region of the United States where cotton is a prof-
itable crop, is determined somewhat by soil, but much
more by the intensity of summer heat, and the length of
the growing season. The extremes of the cotton belt may
be snid, in a general way, to be the territory included be-
tween the thirtieth and fortieth degrees of north latitude.
In other words, cotton can be produced with various
degrees of profit throughout the region bounded on the
north by a line passing through Philadelphia, on the
south, by a line passing a little south of New Orleans, and
on the west, by a line passing through San Antonio. This
is the limit of the possibilities. Not more than one-half,
and that the lower half of this territory, can properly be
said to be suited to the growth of cotton.

An east and west line passing through Memphis divides
the region where cotton growing is materially crippled by
69

70 COTTON CULTTJEE.

the shortness of the season, from that in which the main
difficulty to be contended with is soil, not climate. When
the price of cotton is from ten to fifteen cents, there are
parts of the valley of the lower Tennessee, a region between
the Tennessee and the Mississippi, of which Jackson is the
center, some bottom lands in the northern parts of Arkan-
sas and in the southern part of Missouri, and a limited
area in North Carolina, where cotton, at those prices, is a
profitable crop.

But the Cotton States, properly speaking, are South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, the northern part of Florida,
Mississippi, the northern half of Louisiana, the southern
half of Arkansas, and the eastern half of Texas. Within
these limits, the question for the cotton grower is one of
soil. He requires to know what parts of this large region
afford lands sufficiently rich for cultivation, which are least
exhausted, and what river bottoms are so raised, or pro-
tected from overflow as to be safe for locating a planta-
tion upon them.

Beginning with the western limit of the region above
described, let us move eastward towards the Atlantic
States, considering the cotton growing qualities of each
of the States above mentioned.

TEXAS.

The coast of Texas for fifty or sixty miles north-west
from the tide-water line is low and flat. The soil is deep,
rich, and black, suited to sugar cane as well as cotton.

But drainage is difficult, and much of this low surface
is liable to be invaded by sea-water at high tides. If
leveed from the sea, and ditched, it produces abundant
crops, and enjoying, as it does, a sea climate, is, on that
account, well adapted to the growth of Sea Island cotton.
Geologically, all the coast of Texas, and the soil for a hun-
dred and fifty or two hundred miles inland, is alluvial,
being formed ]by the deposit of detritus of old rivers which

COTTON CULTURE. 71

washed clown the debris of secondary rocks. The bed
thus formed was once under salt water, but by gradual
upheaval, has been lifted to a moderate elevation. Thus,
through a wide belt, Texas affords the advantages of an
alluvial soil without the dangers of overflow, and free
from the miasms of river bottoms.

While this description applies generally to the south-
eastern half of the State, it should be stated that the
extreme flatness of some of the prairies renders them unfit
for tillage, and the bottom lands of the Guadalupe, Colo-
rado, Brazos, and Trinity, especially the two latter, are
subject to spring overflow. Yet after subtracting the flat
prairie, and those overflowed bottoms which cannot e"asily
be protected by levees, there remains a vast breadth of
well-nigh virgin soil in this State admirably adapted to the
production of a very fine staple of cotton.

Throughout this region, to which should be added the
superior cotton lands near Red River, on the north-eastern
border, the average yield per acre is seven hundred and
fifty pounds of cotton in the seed, or about three-quarters
of a bale of ginned cotton, which is more than double the
average yield of either Tennessee or South Carolina.

As an unbroken body or strip of cotton land, probably
the valley of the Brazos is not surpassed on the American
continent. But a small part of it has yet been brought
under the plow. The bottom is, on an average, includ-
ing the second bottom which is fully as fertile as the imme-
diate bank, five miles wide, and between three and four
hundred miles long. Here are included a million of acres,
almost every square rood of which can be plowed, and all
capable of producing for a long series of years two bales
to the acre. Thus two-thirds of the largest of American
cotton crops might be grown in this valley.

Barely less productive than this bottom is a wide, but
irregular body of lands, lying between the rivers, and
known as the black rolling prairie. The dip of these sur-

72 COTTON CULTURE.

faces is sufficient to give good drainage, yet not enough to
produce washing. The soil is deep, mellow, and warm,
and abounds in many places in small, white shells, showing
at once detritus and sea-water action.

The diseases and enemies of the cotton plant have rarely
shown themselves on these lands. They are easy of culti-
vation, and not remote from market, though less accessible
than those of the Brazos and Trinity bottoms. At a low
calculation, there are a million of acres of this description,
east of the region of drought, as yet uncultivated, and held
at moderate rates.

Then the bottoms of the Guadalupe, the Colorado, the
Trinity, and the Red River lands, comprise another de-
scription of cotton soil, in some parts superior, and in
others a little inferior to the black prairies. On the Gua-
dalupe lands, it is indeed remarkable how little rain gives
a crop.

I have seen six hundred and seven hundred pounds of
ginned cotton per acre produced, without a drop of rain
on the plants after they were six inches high. The quality
of the staple thus grown is superior to that of a wet season ;
but corn is nearly an impossible crop under such circum-
stances. The Colorado River may be said to divide those
parts of Texas that are sufficiently moist from those which
suffer almost every summer from long droughts.

The eastern part of Texas, that is, the lands drained
west into the Trinity, and east into the Sabine, is gener-
ally poor, covered to a great extent by the southern pine.
Yet one-third, perhaps, of this surface, where the pine is
considerably interspersed with oak, poplar, and magnolia,
will produce from three to four hundred pounds of lint
cotton per acre.

The northern and western parts of Texas, comprising
probably two-thirds or three-fourths of the two hundred
and thirty-seven thousand square miles in the whole State,
are grazing and grain growing lands ; but one-fourth of the

COTTON CULTURE. 73

State, an area equal to the whole of Georgia, is admirably
adapted to cotton, and capable, with due allowance for
grazing land and edible crops, of yielding a larger supply
of cotton than the whole South ever produced in one year.

LOUISIANA AND ARKANSAS.

Red River may be said, in a general way, to divide this
State into two distinct regions, one adapted to the raising
of cotton, the other of sugar. The part east of the Missis-
sippi River, and south of the line of the State of Missis-
sippi, commonly called the Florida parishes, having for-
merly made a part of West Florida, is to a great extent
composed of cotton counties, but the principal part of the
cotton crop of Louisiana, between two hundred thousand
and three hundred thousand bales, grows in the Red River
bottoms above Alexandria, and in the north-eastern corner
of the State, a triangular extent of inexhaustibly fertile
land, washed on the east by the Mississippi, and on the
west by the Washita, and penetrated by the Tensas, the
Little Tensas, Bayou. Macon, and Bayou Boeuf.

This region is wholly alluvial, two hundred miles in
length, with an average width of about forty miles, thus
giving over five million acres, not more than one-tenth of
which is incapable of cultivation. A greater part of it is,
however, subject to overflow, the waters of the Mississippi
being kept from it during several months of every year by
high embankments, which are liable at any time, and at
almost any point, to burst.

In a favorable season, these lands produce a bale and a
half to the acre, but this region, called " the swamp " of
Louisiana, is malarious, an^l, in winter, acute diseases of
the lungs are very frequent, so that when the- losses by
overflow, and the disadvantages of sickness and almost
impassable roads in winter, are taken into account, it may
be doubted whether cotton growing is not, on the whole,
4

74 COTTON CULTURE.

less profitable here than in the hill lands, where the aver-
age production is considerably less than a bale to the acre,

It will be observed that the Washita and its tributaries
extend for a hundred miles or more into the southern part
of Arkansas. This part of the State, embracing, perhaps,
half of what lies south of the Arkansas River, is an excel-
lent cotton region, not liable to overflow, except imme-
diately on the Mississippi, and having a climate precisely
adapted to the growth of the great staple. In the south-
west corner of Arkansas, the lands on Red River, and the
streams which empty into it, are also excellent as cotton
lands.

They are, however, very imperfectly developed, never
having produced more than one-tenth of the amount they
are capable of producing. Their average production, the
same with that of the Louisiana lands, is seven hundred
pounds per ac*re of seed cotton.

This part of the State has an unenviable reputation with
regard to health, but this difficulty may be greatly modi-
fied, and, perhaps, wholly removed, when the land is more
extensively cleared, and reduced to cultivation.

Although most of the cotton of Louisiana and of Arkan-
sas grows in the district bounded north by the Arkansas,
and south by the Red, including the bottom lands of those
streams, there is quite a breadth of land suitable to this
crop on the south side of the Red. In the parish imme-
diately south of this river, Pointe Coupee, which extends
from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya, the soil, one of
great fertility, is about equally adapted to cotton or sugar,
but the former is replacing the latter on a great number
of farms. Cotton is raised nearly down to New Orleans,
but the tendency is to a rank growth of the plant, and
late development of the bolls.

From the result of some experiments made a few years
ago on the Houmas lands, and communicated to the author
by their former owner, Hon, John S. Preston, of South

COTTOX CULTURE. 75

Carolina, there is reason to suppose that a variety of black
seed cotton might grow well on the heavy black lands of
Southern Louisiana.

They have always been considered as sugar soils only,
but Mr. Preston planted a considerable breadth of land
near Donaldsonville with " Main " cotton seed, a variety
finer than any green seed, but not equal to the genuine
Sea Island. He found that in proportion as he receded
from the river bank the plant flourished. The plants near
the front were feeble, but in the rows that extended back
nearly to the timber, a distance of from two to three
miles, they grew better and better as the distance from
the front increased.

The difference may be owing to greater freshness or
more moisture in the laud. If the sugar interests of
Louisiana decline, as the prospect now is, it may prove a
matter of great importance to know that black seed cot-
ton will grow well on those strong lands. Some experi-
ments are being made this year, (1867,) on these and sim-
ilar soils in Texas with black seed cotton from Egypt, with
what result remains as yet to be seen.

North of the Arkansas River, there is a territory re-
sembling in its general features the cotton fields of Louis-
iana. It is drained by the White, the Saint Francis, and
the Big Black, and produces several thousand bales of cot-
ton, but is not likely to become remarkable for its growth
of this staple.

MISSISSIPPI.

Coming now to that half of the cotton belt which lies
east of the Mississippi River, we have the great cotton pro-
ducing State, which takes its name from the river that
constitutes its western boundary. And here, immediately
east of the river, and north of Vicksburg, we find a terri-
tory whose general shape is that of an ellipse, Vicksburg
being at the lower extremity, and Memphis at the upper,

76 COTTON CULTURE.

which is wholly alluvial, intersected by numerous streams,
and of enormous productive power.

The Yazoo is its eastern limit, and Deer Creek, Yala-
busha, and its tributaries, the Sunflower, Coldwater, and
Tallahatchie Rivers, permeate it in various directions.
About two hundred miles in length, with an average width
of twenty-five miles, it comprises over three million acres
of soil, which is literally exhaustless, and situated in the
very centre of the cotton belt.

The crop is more certain here than in any other part of
the Mississippi Valley. It is, however, like the correspond-
ing section in Louisiana and Arkansas, west of the river,
subject to overflow, but does not require protection by
such enormous and extensive levees as those which guard
the lands on the west side of the river.

Leaving now this great alluvion, we come to a different
class of cotton lands from any on the west side of the great
river. The hills or uplands of this State are of far greater
breadth than the submerged or alluvial lands, and some
parts of the State are covered with almost unbroken
forests of the southern pine. This is true of the fifteen
counties that lie in the south-east corner. Placing these
out of the account, there remains a range of counties ex-
tending diagonally across the State from Woodville to
Holly Springs, in all of which cotton is grown in large
quantities.

These uplands are, in their natural state, covered with
a growth of white oak, red oak, beech, poplar, magnolia,
with pine interspersed. The soil is very soft and friable,
so that the surface, unless plowed with care, is soon ruined
and cut to pieces by the washing of the winter rains.

When properly cared for, however, they deteriorate
very slowly in cotton culture, many of them being now
fully as valuable as they were from thirty to fifty years
ago, when they were first opened. The average crop of
this class of lands in Mississippi is about half a bale of

COTTON CULTURE. 77

ginned cotton to the acre. The average product per acre
throughout the State, according to the census of 1850, is
six hundred and fifty pounds.

Along the north-eastern limit of the State are lands
which drain into the Tombigbee. This is an excellent
cotton country, the climate being exactly suited to the
plant, and the soil remarkably soft and light.

ALABAMA.

This State and Mississippi are remarkably similar in
situation, and in the amount and quality of cotton which
they produce. Both extend to the Gulf on the south ;
both are bounded on the north by Tennessee ; both have- a
large extent of poor land occupying the south eastern angle
of their territory. The north-eastern part of Alabama is
rough and unproductive, except in a few valleys of limited
extent, but on the northern border is the most southern
curve of the Tennessee River, whose valley affords much
good, though not first-class, cotton land.

As in Louisiana, the rich cotton lands of Alabama are
confined to an angle of the State. The bottoms of the
Tombigbee and Alabama, and the irregularly shaped tri-
angle that lies between the lower parts of these streams,
send by far the greater part of the cotton of Alabama to
market. With the exception of the limited region around
Huntsville and Tuscumbia, in the northern part, there is
not a great deal grown north of the thirty-third degree of
north latitude, or the line which, continued west, divides
Louisiana from Arkansas. The tenth degree west of
Washington, which corresponds nearly with a line con-
necting Decatur and Pensacola, divides the State about
equally, east and west. The south-western quarter of Ala-
bama as thus bisected in each direction, is equalled only
by the rich black prairies of Texas as cotton soil.

The alluvions of the rivers are, of course very rich and

78 COTTON CULTURE.

strong. In some cases they are subject to overflow, and
in others the drainage is defective, especially on the Tom-
bigbee.

But near the centre of the State is a tract of land extend-
ing about forty miles in each direction, giving something
like sixteen hundred square miles, or more than a million
acres, which, all things considered, is the best cotton land
in America, and probably in the world. From a large
county of that name these are frequently called the Marengo
lands.

The soil is deep, rich, and black, covered, in its natural
state, with a dense growth of cane, rolling so as to give
sufficient drainage, yet never steep enough to wash. Every
square foot is capable of culture. The Tombigbee on the
west, and the. Alabama on the south-east, both navigable
the greater part of the year, give prompt and cheap access
to Mobile, the export town. Entirely above overflow, and
remote from lakes and marshes, it is a much healthier re-
gion than the cotton fields of the lower Mississippi. The
most of this favored section lies between the thirty-second
and thirty-third degrees of latitude, the very centre of
the cotton belt, where the length of the season is exact-
ly adapted to cotton. More of these cane lands of Ala-
bama, in proportion to the whole area, are in cultivation
than is the case with the other cotton fields on the Missis-
sippi and west of it, which have been described. They
produce always a bale, and, in the best seasons, a bale and
a half to the acre. The rains of winter convert the roads
into quagmires, but in summer they become hard and
glossy, as firm as a floor, and entirely free from dust.

The productive capacity of this part of Alabama alone
cannot be much less than three-fourths of the whole num-
ber of acres, for, allowing two acres in cotton for one in
corn, these cane lands would yield seven hundred and fifty
thousand bales. .

The bottoms of the Alabama, near Montgomery and

COTTON CULTURE. 79

Wetumpka, are wide and very productive, but farther
north, the good cotton lands decrease in amount, there
being in this part of the State many pine and black oak
barrens, where half a bale per acre is a good yield ; but
the valley of the Coosa is good land, as far up as Rome, in
Georgia.

GEORGIA.

This State is naturally divided into three parts or sec-
tions; southern Georgia, middle, and northern Georgia,
or the Cherokee lands, as they are familiarly called. A
line drawn westward from Charleston or from Beaufort
separates the most of the flat pine barrens from the better
parts of the State, which lie north of such a line. The
Cherokee lands may be described, in a general way, as
that part of the State lying north of the thirty-fourth par-
allel, or an east and west line passing through Marietta.

These northern lands, being situated among the spurs
and foot-hills of the Alleghanies, are high and rough, well
adapted to grazing, corn, and wheat, and but ill suited to
the production of the great southern staple, which flour-
ishes best on lands that are unsuitable for wheat.

The climate of southern Georgia is, of course, well
adapted to cotton, but the difficulty is with the soil. In
the valleys of the Chattahoochie, the Flint, and on the
waters of the Altamaha, there are many rich bottoms, but
rice is found to be a more profitable crop on many of these
lands. The region about Columbus, however, is a good
cotton soil, and a large amount is raised in that part of the
State. The good and the poor lands of Georgia are more
mixed than in any of the south-western or new States^but
in a general way, the middle counties of Georgia are the
cotton counties. The natural growth on these lands is
white and red oak, chestnut, hickory, poplar, sycamore on
the water courses, with pine on the poorer lands, and black
jacks on the barren hills.

80 COTTON CULTURE.

Many of these lands are of a very red color, and wash
quite easily. As they have been many years in cultiva-
tion, and much abused, particularly in the mode of plow-
ing, they are not at present remarkably productive. The
average yield is something like two-thirds of a bale to the
acre. Cotton planting in Georgia has never been con-
ducted with the same exclusive devotion to the growing
of a single staple, as characterizes planting in the south-
west.

The farmer in Georgia is in the habit of raising wheat,
oats, potatoes, and sometimes tobacco and hemp, cotton
being only one of his crops. There is not a great deal of
undeveloped cotton land in Georgia. A careful system of
plowing, with proper rotation, may keep the annual pro-
duction of this staple from falling off.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

The surface of this State, like that of North Carolina,
its northern boundary, and Georgia, its western, is divided
into three parts or species of land, the low lands, the
middle counties, and the mountains. The coast, for some-
thing more than a hundred miles back from the water line,
including the counties of Beaufort, Colleton, Charleston,
Georgetown, Horry, Marion, Williamsburg, a part of
Orangeburg and Barnwell, is low, swampy, fertile, and
sickly. On the bottoms of the Edisto, the Santee, the
Great and Little Pedee, and Lynch's Creek, rice is the
principal crop. The lower corner of the irregular triangle
which forms the State of South Carolina, or, in other words,
that part of the State which lies south of the line connect-
ing Augusta and Georgetown, affords in many places a
soil and climate admirably adapted to the black seed or
Sea Island cotton.

Edisto Island, south of Charleston, is the best locality
in the United States for this variety of cotton. It is pro-
duced as far up the Savannah River as Barnwell district.

COTTON CULTURE. 81

The region lying directly north of Barnwell and Charles-
ton, that is, the counties of Kershaw, Sumter, Darlington,
Chesterfield, Fairfield, Edgefield, and two or three others
still farther towards the mountains, is admirably adapted,
as respects climate, to the production of the ordinary green
seed staple, but only small portions of the surface present
a superior soil.

Like the corresponding cotton counties of Georgia, these
South Carolina lands are by no means uniform in their
appearance or value. The bottoms of the Savannah, Salu-
da, Congaree, Water ee, Catawba, and Lynch's Creek are,
like all other alluvions, remarkably fertile and productive.
But between these streams there are extensive tracts on
which hardly anything grows but the southern pine, and
in those counties adjacent to Georgia there is much red
land, as it is called, which originally was of fine produc-
tive power, but by injudicious cropping, and by washing,
to which the soil is very liable, its value has- greatly de-
teriorated. Much of this region has been in cultivation
for nearly a hundred years, but the bottom lands still yield
a bale to the acre, and the average throughout the State,
in a favorable season, is three hundred and twenty pounds.
In the upper counties, near the Blue Ridge, neither the
soil nor climate is well adapted to cotton, this region being
devoted principally to grain growing and stock raising.

Notwithstanding the length of time for which the State
lias been settled, there remains a very considerable breadth
of undeveloped laud, capable of producing three hundred
pounds and over per acre.

XOETH CAROLINA AND TENNESSEE.

There is but a moderate extent of land in either of these
States adapted to cotton. The river bottoms above Wil-
mington, and some of the midland counties of North Caro-
lina, produce quite well. But in those parts where the
climate suits cotton, the soil is too poor to pay for cultiva-
4*

82 COTTON CULTURE.

tion. The average throughout the State is about two
hundred pounds per acre, but there is very little to attract
or retain planting enterprise on these lands, when such re-
gions as are above described lie open and inviting in the
Southwest.

Passing west of the mountains, one descends the west-
ern slope of the Cumberland range, and approaches to
within thirty miles of Nashville before a cotton soil is
reached. Near the Alabama line, the climate and soil are
both quite favorable, and west of the Tennessee, near
Memphis, and around Jackson and Paris, it is the staple
production. The Tennessee lands that yield over half a
bale per acre are not extensive. In Middle Tennessee one
hundred and fifty pounds per acre is fair cropping ; but the
bottoms of the Mississippi and the Tennessee have not
been found sufficiently fertile to bring the general average
of the State up to three hundred pounds, less than half
of the average Texas crop.

COTTOX ISTOETH OF 38°.

The successful cultivation of cotton depends on the
length of the season more than any one thing. It requires
four months from planting to the opening of the ground
bolls. Then, in order to raise anything like a full crop,
two and a half or three months more are needed for pick-
ing it out. In the best part of the cotton belt the chief
dates in the calendar are as follows :

Planting, about the first of April.

First bloom, early in June.

First open boll, early in August.

Picking commenced, middle of August.

First killing frost, first to middle of November.

Crop gathered, middle. of December.

The effects of shortening the season, as thus allotted,
are, in the first place, to give less time for maturing cotton
before frost, and to make the cotton which is forced open

COTTON CULTURE. >>.

by frost, not by natural maturity of the boll, ^&T%iar in
staple as well as diminished in bullc W^4 / r J1

Suppose, for instance, cotton is pfeate^d ori^jfe'/first of
May, in a climate where corn is plantedafttrat^hat t^P
It has May, June, July, and August to grow in.

If the heat of those months is as great as in
for instance, the plant will begin to open in September,
and there may be two weeks or more when fifty pounds
per day will be picked by each hand. But weather cool
enough to stop the growing of the plant, must come in
October, and, perhaps, not later than the middle of that
month, a frost which will force open the immature bolls.
Then follows a second picking of short, kinky cotton,
clinging to the inner surface of the pods.

When cotton is from thirty to fifty cents a pound, this
may pay. Two hundred pounds per acre may be pro-
duced in this way. At thirty cents per pound, this would
give sixty dollars as the income from one acre. Of wheat,
at t\vo dollars, it would require thirty bushels ; of corn, at
fifty cents, one hundred and twenty bushels, to give the
same result.

The above supposition is the most favorable that can
be expected north of 38°. In the spring of 1862, cotton
seed was planted quite extensively in Maryland, Delaware,
and in Southern Illinois. The fate of a large majority of
these experiments may be summed up as follows: the
plant grew well and looked green, but developed little
or no cotton till frost, when quite a number of pods that
were nearly mature opened, and with cotton at fifty cents
a pound and over, the result was moderately remunerative.

In Delaware, where the sea air imparts greater mildness
to the climate, quite good cotton is raised by forcing the
young plants in a rich bed on a sunny exposure, and trans-
planting after the manner of tobacco. The southern ex-
tremity of Illinois is less than fifty miles from Tennessee,
where half a bale to the acre is produced, and in parts of

COTTON CULTURE.

Missouri, north of 38°, nearly as much has been grown in
a fortunate season.

CHAPTER II.

ENEMIES AND DISEASES OF COTTON.

There are five small animals or insects that afflict, and
sometimes wholly destroy, the cotton plant. These are
the cotton louse, the cut worm, the cotton worm or moth,
(for the worm is the offspring of the moth,) the army

Fig. 14. — THE COTTON LOUSE.

DESCRIPTION : a, young shoot of cotton plant, with lice of natural size ; &,
winged lice, magnified ; c, wingless lice, magnified.

worm, and the boll worm. We are indebted to Prof.
Townend Glover, of the Department of Agriculture at
Washington, for the opportunity to copy from his original

COTTON CULTURE. 85

engravings the insects of which cuts are given in this
chapter.

Of the first, little, perhaps, need be said. It is a small,
gray louse, that attacks the plant when very young, and
is generally found upon cotton that is unfavorably situated
with regard to soil and moisture.

Where there is a rich but wet bottom from which fine
returns may be expected, and copious rains follow the
planting, the young sprouts will have a sickly and rusted
look, and grow very slowly. Upon examination they will
be found to be suffering from the louse.

The first remedy, and that which is generally effectual, is
careful culture. The earth should be loosened around the
young plants, and, if the stand is very thick, it should be
thinned. In many places these early troubles of the cot-
ton plant result from an exhaustion of some of the constit-
uents of the soil which cotton demands.

Ashes and plaster are the best fertilizers of young cot-
ton, and they would probably, if sprinkled dry upon the
plant, destroy this little vermin. It is recommended, then,
to dash or dust upon young cotton plants that are afflicted
with the louse or the sore-shin, a mixture of dry wood
ashes and plaster of Paris. Let it be done immediately
after the first plowing, and before the hoes go over the
crop, as this will give the hoe an opportunity to mingle
the fertilizer with the soil around the roots of the plant.

THE CUT-WORM.

This animal is about an inch long, of a dull, leaden hue.
He burrows in the earth, is of a slow and torpid nature,
and proves himself the enemy of the cotton plant almost
as soon as it appears above ground. From that time for
a month he shows his mischievous nature by biting the
tender stalks just where they emerge from the ground.
Generally he inflicts a severe wound, but quite often sev-

86

COTTON CULTURE.

ers the stalk from the root entirely, and is for that reason
very appropriately called the -Cut-worm.

Fortunately, there is a remedy for the depredations of
this little reptile, which is easy of application, and in most
cases a specific ; though where the crop is large, there may
be a practical difficulty of obtaining a sufficient amount.
Ashes or lime, or a combination of both these fertilizers,
will at once hasten the growth of the plants that are un-
injured, and render the soil so alkaline as to be quite dis-
agreeable to the villain-
ous little creatures. If
they appear in all parts
of the field, the planter
should obtain enough
wood ashes to mix with
an equal quantity of
lime, and thus make a

Fig. 15. — CUT-WORM AND CHRYSALIS.

dressing for the entire
crop. Let a hand fol-
low the plows, dashing the mixture near the roots. The
hoes should follow and blend the fertilizer with the soil in
such a way as to fit it for ready absorption, and at the
same time make the immediate vicinity of the root dis-
tasteful to the Cut-worm.

THE COTTON MOTH.

Sometime in August, when the planter, moving over his
crop, begins to see, now and then, an open boll, he may
notice here and there a gray, harmless looking moth or
miller, early in the morning or in the evening, flitting
about, in a careless way, over the plants. In a few days
after, some worms will make their appearance in different
parts of the field, but their ravages will be inconsiderable,
not sufficient to excite alarm except with the experienced
observer.

COTTOX CULTURE. 87

•

These worms will disappear in a few days, and the
sanguine planter may be feeling quite sure of an abundant
crop. His neighbors may be congratulating him, and he
may write a flushed letter to his factor in the city ;

* * * " and as his crop puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms
And bears its blushing honors thick upon it :
The third day comes "

not a killing frost ; but a visitation that is just as fatal to
the cotton-field and its crop, as though, in the midst of
that glowing midsummer, the thermometer should sud-
denly drop to the freezing point.

When the cotton worm is fairly developed and begins
his ravages in earnest, the planter has nothing to do but
to sit by and witness the havoc. Then his labors are im-
potent, for his enemy is unconquerable from the sheer vast-
ness of his force. His numbers are in millions and tens
of millions ; every plant, and almost every leaf, is swarm-
ing with them, and in three days he may behold a magnifi-
cent field, embracing perhaps a thousand acres, standing
perfectly leafless, with no possibility of affording more
than an eighth or a tenth of a crop.

This is an enemy that admits of no delay ; he must be
met at the outset, and fought in every way by which
there is any likelihood of conquering him. Those
fe\v harmless looking millers were the mothers of the first
crop of worms. They produced a large generation of
millers, who, in time, became the parents of that enormous
host of devourers.

Let us describe this harmless looking fly a little more
fully, so that the planter, to whom she is fortunately not
familiar, may recognize her and give her a proper reception.
An intelligent planter, who lives just above Port Hudson,
in a region that has suffered very much from the ravages
of this worm, has given the following description, which
will enable the inexperienced to become duly warned.

88

COTTON CULTURE.

" The cotton fly belongs to that numerous class of in-
sects known to naturalists under the terra of phalena, or
moth tribe. The following are its specific characters, de-
scribed without technicalities. The little horns projecting
from the head, terminating in a small point like a bristle,
are of a drab color, half an inch long, and about half the
length of the body, which measures nearly an inch ; the
under surface of the breast is of a dull silvery white, gradu-

g. 16. — THE COTTON MOTH AND CATERPILLAR.

DESCRIPTION : a, young caterpillar after moulting its skin once ; 5, full grown
caterpillar ; c, moth in motion ; £?, moth at rest.

ally terminating on the belly and wings in a color tending
to russet. The upper surface of the wings and back varies
somewhat in different individuals, but is generally of a
changeable golden color, with rusty, zigzag lines; the
tips of the wings are bordered with a narrow strip of pale
pink color, and slightly notched. On the upper surface
of the wings there are two black spots, one on each,
about the middle of the widest part, or that towards the
tail. The legs are white, the four posteriors very long

COTTON CULTURE. 89

when compared with the front ones, which are short and
slender; the tail is simple, that is, undivided. The
length of this insect is about an inch from head to tail, and
the wings, when expanded, are of about the same width.
To conclude, I will add, that the shape of this moth is
very much that of an isosceles triangle, with the line
forming the base bent in about a quarter of an inch.
This peculiar figure is produced by the outer angle of the
upper wings projecting beyond the inner angle."

There are two general modes of attack ; one is to make
war upon the moth itself and destroy as many as possible
before they lay their eggs, about the last act of their lives,
which extend through ten days. The other is to hunt out
their little nests on the cotton leaves and destroy then!.
Though depending for its existence entirely upon cotton,
which is a tropical plant, this fly and the worm which is
produced from it, does not seem to enjoy the hot sun. The
worms sometimes perish in passing from one plant to an-
other if the sun falls full upon them, and the moth is most
likely to be found in the morning and the evening.

Let the laborers go out very early, and start into the
field in a line between the rows, each armed with a wide
shingle cut away into a handle at one end. As they move
forward, the moth rises from the leaves, and can be struck
down and killed with the paddle.

Another method is to mix molasses, vinegar and cobalt
in such proportions as to make a sticky mass. Expose it
in plates, each set on a board, which is nailed to the top
of a stake. Some planters recommend that they be used
as thickly as a plate to an acre. The moths are attracted
to these plates, and falling in, become fastened and perish.
Fires in the fields have been recommended as attracting
and destroying this moth; white cotton flags, about a
yard square, are also said to allure the insect, and serve as
deposits for their eggs.

It will not do to rely upon either of these modes, as

90 COTTOX CULTURE.

some will escape the paddle and fail to get into the molas-
ses. Fortunately the places where the mischievous crea-
tures lay their eggs, are easily found. She cuts the mid-rib
or main fibre of a leaf and bends it over, tying it down
with a little thread, and beneath this shelter tent deposits
the tiny atoms that, in ten days, become worms. They
are protected also by a few threads laid over them. The
cutting of the fibre and bending over of the leaf is a sure
sign that immense mischief is hatching, and if in walking
through a number of rows many such leaves are visible,
the planter should start in his whole force with cotton
bags, instructing them to hunt for all such leaves, pick
them, bring them all out, and burn them.
* It is impossible to predict when and where this pest
will appear, or whence it comes. It was not much known,
at least in the Southwest, before 1820. Since then it has
made irregular but quite too frequent visits, sometimes de-
stroying thousands and tens of thousands of acres. The
worm grows very rapidly, is of a brown color with dark
stripes, about an inch long, and looks some like the apple
tree worm that infests orchards.

It generally occurs that a few appear and pass away
some time in August, and then, if nothing is done, the at-
tack in mass comes early in September. Where there is a
large crop to be saved, it would be advisable to take those
few pla'nts upon which worms first appear and entirely de-
stroy them. By this mode, the second generation of mil-
lers would be considerably reduced in number, if not
quite exterminated.

There is something remarkable in the way in which one
of these countless generations provides its own destruc-
tion without leaving even a representative.

The first moths that visit a crop deposit their eggs and
die. These eggs, in ten days, become little worms, which
fall to eating the leaf on which they were hatched, and as
they grow, consume the plant and pass to another.

COTTON CULTURE. 91

But age comes on apace with these ephemeral creatures ;
the worm presently grows weary of devouring, selects a
leaf, rolls himself in a little cocoon, and dies. From each
of the cocoons, in a few days, a moth emerges, and these
deposit the eggs from which the devouring host is hatch-
ed. But their numbers and their voracity now become
fatal to themselves as well as to the crop on which they
feed. They consume the last leaf on the last plant of a
field, leaving no place upon which their cocoons can be
deposited. If, by accident, a few moths should be repro-
duced, they would find no pasturage for the young to be
hatched from their eggs, for the creature can eat nothing
but cotton. When the growth of a field is consumed,
they start away feebly for another range, but the first
fence or ditch arrests them. The sun kills them, the birds
pick them up, the wheels of a wagon, passing along a
plantation road, crush millions of them ; so that in two
days from the time the crop was devoured, not one of the
voracious army may survive. They perish as utterly as
the hosts of Pharoah, and the discomfited planter is re-
minded of

" The sojourners of Goshen, who "beheld
From the safe shore, their floating carcasses
And broken chariot- wheels."

Those who have studied the habits and peculiarities of
this insect, have arrived at the following conclusions :

1st. — That nature has made no provision by which either
the fly, the worm, the chrysalis, or the eggs, can survive
the winter or exist for any length of time where the cotton
plant is not a perennial.

3d. — There is no regularity in their advent, no law that
seems to prescribe the times of their re-appearing.

3d. — Their progress is from north to soutli) and from
west to east. That is, in the United States, the cotton of
Louisiana and Texas is liable to suffer the first attack, and
the fields of Arkansas, Tennessee, and the Carolinns, will

92 COTTON CULTURE.

be invaded, if at all, so late in the season that the ravages
of the worm are only a little before frost, and but mod-
erate injury is produced.

4th. — It probably originates in Mexico and South Amer-
ica, and from some unknown cause occasionally migrates
northward.

THE ARMY WORM.

Without pausing now to speculate or sum up the ob-
servations on the origin of this devourer, it will suffice to

Fig. 17.— THE ARMY-WORM AND MOTH.

DESCRIPTION : a, the caterpillar, or army-worm ; £, cocoon formed of particles
of earth cemented together with silk or gum ; found under stones or in the earth ;
c, chrysalis ; c?, moth. The moths vary very much in color and markings.

remark that he differs both in appearance and habits from
the cotton worm or caterpillar described on the foregoing
pages. Of voracity equal to that of the cotton worm, he
is a general consumer of every green crop in the line of

COTTON CULTURE. 93

his march. He is much longer lived than the caterpillar,
and can travel much faster, overcoming greater obstacles
in his path. He resembles the cotton worm in coming
from the South northward, and in the countless myriads
with which he invades a crop.

The Army-worm is not so subtle or difficult an enemy
as the former. The force advances by regular marches
from one field to anottier, and does not send out breeders
in the form of a moth to deposit eggs throughout a field.
The planter may hear of his advance from afar, and have
a number of days or weeks to prepare a suitable reception
for the enemy.

The most effective obstacle that can be interposed in the
path of the Army-worm is a clean cut ditch, of moderate
depth, but with smooth, perpendicular faces. As a precau-
tionary measure, many planters cut such a ditch all around
their place, or at least on the southern and western expo-
sure. But the washing of winter rains and the growth
of weeds and bushes will remove the earth from the sides,
or bridge over the ditch so as to make it useless without
prompt working. Whenever there is any likelihood that
a plantation lies in the path of such an army, let the plows
be started on the side of the field in the direction of the
enemy, and throw out a wide furrow from the field. The
plow should go two or three times over the same ground,
and be followed by hoes and spades, cutting down the
ditch a foot or eighteen! inches deep, care being exercised
to make at least the inner wall or face quite perpendicular
and smooth. It will sometimes happen that the southern
or western extremity of a field is invaded before the
farmer or planter has had sufficient warning to make
ready for them. In that case let him take a lesson of de-
cisive fire engineers, when laboring to stay a conflagration,
which is spreading before the wind in a populous city.

With a proper estimate of the rate of advance of the
enormous horde, let him select a path, and send a force to

94 COTTON CULTURE.

cut down and throw towards the army two or three rows
of cotton. Then let the plows, hoes and spades, follow
rapidly, and cut the ditch as soon as possible. Sometimes
it may be necessary to keep the plows in constant motion
in order to bury the advance guard and give time to com-
plete the ditch. _ Another precaution, which many employ,
is to scatter straw or dry sedge grass in the ditch and re-
new it when burned, so as to keep a bed of hot cinders,
or a line of fire in front of the threatened field. As the
whole farm is in danger, as well as the cotton field, the
Army-worm devouring corn, grass, gardens, and stacks of
fodder that lie in Ms path, an attack of this character im-
poses the most strenuous and constant activity on every
one that can lift a finger in the contest. A patrol with
the plow and spade, should be kept up along the line of
the ditch.

The Army-worm hardly needs a formal description. No
other reptile moves, as he does, in such enormous force.
He is of about the length of the little finger of a man, and
nearly as thick, yellowish in color, with a single dark
stripe along the back. He travels by bending up the back
and drawing the last feet nearly up to the head, then
throwing the head forward, thus measuring his length
from one point to another.

There appears to be no bird, but the blue jay, that will
eat it. Hens and turkeys look upon it with curiosity or
fear.

THE BOLL-WOEM.

Unlike the caterpillar and the Army-worm, the Boll-
worm is an annual pest of the cotton plant, hybernating
in the ground, and commencing depredations as soon as
the young forms begin to swell. He never destroys a
crop as they do, but pierces three, four, or sometimes ten
bolls, nearly or quite killing them, at length penetrat-

COTTON CULTURE. 95

ing to the centre of a full grown boll, where he lies con-
cealed till near the time of his transformation.

The peculiarity of this worm is that his natural food
is corn, which he always prefers, but will attack cotton if
the other plant is not at hand. The moth which pro-
duces the worm is thus described by a planter in Jackson,
Mississippi, who has evidently made the subject a study.
" Of a pale yellow or shining ash color, length of body
and wings an inch and one eighth, the wings expanded
two inches, the upper covering the lower. Below the cen-
tre and near the border of the upper wings are two dark
spots, with two or three indistinct ones on each upper
wing ; end of the wing whitish, having a wavy dark band
near the border. Throat a little convex, downy ; abdomen
color of wings and downy ; proboscis folded spirally un-
derneath, double, half an inch long; eyes large, clear
yellowish-green. Six legs, antennae fusiform; lies con-
cealed in the day in fence corners and around stumps,
flies only late in the evening and at night near the ground
and rapidly."

In the early part of July this moth pairs, and in four
days lays about seven hundred and fifty eggs, soon after
which it dies.

These eggs are deposited on the silks of corn. In three
days they hatch, and the young worms commence feeding
on the green corn and the silk. Remaining here about
two weeks, the worm then goes down into the ground to
the depth of three inches, where it is transformed into a
chrysalis of bright mahogany color and conical shape, and
about an inch in length. In sixteen days, the moth above
described bursts from the crysalis. The moth of the sec-
ond generation finds, at this time of the year, little or no
corn in the silk, in the cotton latitudes, and in the ab-
sence of its favorite plant, lays its eggs on the top bud or
on the ends of the side buds of the cotton plant.

At the time of this deposit, if the weather is dry and

96

COTTON CULTURE.

the sun very hot, most of the eggs perish or become
abortive. This is the reason why moist weather in Au-
gust forebodes an attack of the Boll-worm. But no sea-
son is so hot and dry but some worms will be hatched,
and they commence to spread downward upon the plant
and commit depredations on the boll.

Fig. 18.— THE BOLL-WORM AND MOTH.

DESCRIPTION : a, the young worm eating into the young boll ; £, full grown
boll with hole eaten in the side, containing the Boll-worm after shedding skin
the 4th time (19th day), with foeces in boll ; c, moth in motion, and cf, at rest.

The Boll-worm is thus accurately described by Mr.
Boddie, of Jackson.

" The larva or caterpillar, when full grown, will measure
from an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters in
length; it looks, to a superficial observer, brown, pale
yellow and light green, though it has eight longitudinal
streaks of white, brown and green, with one or two dots
on each segment of the body along the lowest streak. It
is smooth, shining, naked, with a few hairs on each seg-
ment of the body. It is of a cylindrical form, tapering a

COTTON CULTURE. 97

little at each end; rather thick in proportion to its length,
and has six legs in the fore part of its body, eight at the
middle, and two near the tail. The head is brown,
smaller than the body, and oval in shape."

After thus destroying from one to eight or ten bolls,
the reptile descends and rolls himself into a cocoon or egg
in which to get through the coming winter and spring ;
for nature prepares no food for him during nine months of
the year. The eggs or. cocoons that hybernate, must be
hidden in the neighborhood where the perfect insect lived,
that is, in the cotton-fields or near them. It is doubtful
whether any are hidden in the soil of the corn-field where
there is cotton anywhere near ; for, after July, the animal en-
tirely deserts corn, and goes to the cotton-fields. This is the
case, at least, in the district where cotton flourishes best,
for there the corn nearly all hardens late in July or early
in August. Thus, in the northern part of the cotton belt,
as Tennessee and North Carolina, the Boll-worm does lit-
tle injury to cotton, for there he can find green corn till
quite late in the season.

These preferences and habits of the Boll-worm under-
stood, it is not so difficult to prescribe a course of treat-
ment that will rid the cotton-fields of his presence.

There are two modes, and, so far as now known, but
two modes of expelling this pest ; one by starving or kill-
ing the moth, the other by drawing it to corn, its natural
food, and keeping it there.

Rotation of crops, managed so as to place the corn at
some distance from the cotton, and throwing out the cot-
ton-field to lie fallow a year, will destroy almost all the
eggs of the Boll-worm.

Suppose that a cotton farm is so far remote from others
as to enable the planter to interpose a mile of wood land
or pasturage between the cultivated fields of each. In
September, the worms descend from the bolls and enter
the ground. Let the ground lie fallow, or be sowed wit]]
5

98 COTTON CULTURE.

oats the following year. In August, when the moth
emerges from the ground, she may find neither corn nor
cotton within a mile upon which to deposit eggs. Her
flight is low, and her days are brief. The chances arc,
that she will perish before reaching either of the plants
upon which she and her young feed.

The exposure of a mixture of molasses and cobalt, with
a little vinegar, at the edge of a cotton field, and nearest
the corn from which they migrate in the latter part of
July and first of August, would probably attract and
poison large numbers of them. By carefully noting the
time of their moving upon the cotton, it might be effective
to send out early in the morning the whole force with pad-
dles or little hand-nets, to walk abreast down the rows
next the corn, and catch and kill them as they fly up.
Where corn and cotton are adjacent, the moth settles in
the first rows of cotton as soon as she leaves the other
plant, and by patroling these rows every morning, the
most of the invaders might be destroyed.

Another mode of overcoming the difficulty, would be to
provide other and more attractive pasturage for them
than the cotton boll. This could be done by having a
small field of late corn next the cotton, that would be in
silk as late as the latter part of August or the first of
September. The worm would not be likely to leave the
corn for the cotton, until it was too late for him to work
much injury.

The same might perhaps be better attained by having
rows of late corn, at intervals of twenty or thirty feet,
through the cotton-field. This arrangement would be sure
to draw all the moths, late in the season, .to that field.
Their cocoons would be buried in the soil, and by turning
out that field to rest for a year or two, and transferring
the crops to some distance, the race of Boll-worms on that
place might be exterminated.

The diseases of cotton are not generally as destructive

COTTON CT7LTUKE. 99

as its enemies from the animal kingdom. Few crops are
ever destroyed by anything but the caterpillar or the Ar-
my-worm ; the " sore-shin," the red and brown rust, the
dry rot, and the " cotton blues," damage a crop in various
degrees, sometimes ruining a part of a field, or cutting off
a number of bolls from each plant.

As these diseases'are easily recognized when they make
their appearance, and as little can be done towards arrest-
ing their progress when once developed in a crop, the at-
tention of the planter should be turned mainly to the best
means of providing against their return.

" An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Rust, on the cotton stalk, is a small parasitical fungus
or morbid growth, like lichens on trees, that springs up
and materially checks the advancement of the plant by
absorbing its juices. This fungus is produced by a dis-
eased state of the plant, which may arise in various ways,
but principally from a stagnation in its growth and in-
sufficient supply of some of the elements of vegetable life.
This stagnation may be produced by a singularly unfavor-
able season, but it is more likely the consequence of an
unwise system of cropping and bad husbandry.

" Defective cultivation," says Professor Harper, of the
University of Mississippi, " is the reason of ninety-nine
cases of rust in cotton, while one is owing to an unfavor-
able season."

The " sore shin " is an affection of young cotton plants,
very similar in appearance, and probably of the same
origin as rust.

uRot, or gangrene, is a decay that attacks the top
bolls. The seed and lint first rot and turn black ; then a
sore or scab appears, resembling a puncture with a sharp
instrument. This extends quite over the surface of the
boll, and very frequently, after the disease has taken pos-
session of the whole pod, it opens its prongs and repre-
sents a thoroughly rotten state in all its parts."

100 COTTON CULTURE.

This account of the disease by an Alabama planter was
given with a view of eliciting information on the subject.
No careful examination of this affection has ever been
made, or at least given to the world, and all that can be
said by way of suggesting a cure is, that proper cultiva-
tion, and an application of just those fertilizers which
cotton demands, will give partial, if not entire relief.

Sometimes in July and August, when the cotton should
be maturing rapidly, there will appear a change in the
color of some parts of the field. Instead of a deep,
healthy green, the plants take on a dull slate or leaden
color ; the strength of the soil seems to expend itself on
the woody fibre, not in maturing the bolls.

The planter calls this " blue cotton." At other times,
depending perhaps on a very wet season, the plant, after
growing several feet, and bearing well, sheds all its fruit
and becomes blue.

As the remedies for all these diseases of the cotton
plant may be summed up in one phrase, the improved and
scientific culture of cotton, that wide field of inquiry and
suggestion, must be remitted to the succeeding chapter.

CHAPTER III.

IMPROVED AND SCIENTIFIC CULTURE OF COTTON.

Though cotton is the great American staple of export,
and has been proclaimed a King in the commercial world,
no leading crop of the country has been so little studied
by scientific men, and none has been cultivated with so lit-
tle reference to fundamental principles of agricultural
chemistry. Three reasons may be assigned for this some-
what surprising fact,

COTTON CULTURE. 101

First. — The class of labor that has hitherto been ap-
plied to cotton raising, was, in the last degree, rude and
unskilled. Science and judgment on the part of a proprie-
tor or agent is of little avail, unless the hand that does
the work is guided by a thinking brain.

Second. — On account of the opening of vast and still
vaster regions blessed with a virgin and inexhaustible soil
in the Southwest, which could be obtained at almost nomi-
nal prices, there was no necessity for a system of culture
in the older States that should keep the land in undimin-
ished productiveness. Why should the cotton grower on
the old red lands of the Carolinas and Georgia labor to
redeem his acres from the effects of past errors, fill the
deep gulches, prevent washing, exterminate the sedge
grass and the stunted pine and black oak bushes, and re-
store the potash, lime and phosphorus drained from the
soil by long cropping without fertilizers, when a few hun-
dred miles to the Southwest lay those wide savannahs and
broad alluvial bottoms, teeming with tropical luxuriance,
to which the Government would give him a fee simple for
a dollar and a quarter an acre ?

Third. — Cotton is not a rapid exhauster of any soil.
Compare for amount of mineral and organic matter re-
moved from the soil, the potato crop with the cotton crop.
The stalks of cotton and of potatoes are alike returned to
the soil. An acre in potatoes yields, in tubers, say ten
thousand pounds weight, which is wholly removed. Three-
fourths of this is water, leaving twenty-five hundred
pounds dry and mineral matter. In cotton, the same acre
would yield a bale, or four hundred pounds of lint. The
weight of the dry seed would be about three times that
of the lint, that is, twelve hundred pounds. Add the
weight of the lint, and the sum is sixteen hundred pounds.
Thus, compared with the potato, the removal is as sixteen
to twenty-five.

But in the rudest agriculture ever practiced on cotton

102 COTTON CULTUEE.

soils, the custom has been to plant six, eight, or ten times
as many seeds as were expected to become plants. In
other words, of the twelve hundred pounds of seed taken
from an acre, a thousand pounds were returned to the soil
as a fertilizer ; so the real removal was only six hundred
pounds from an acre, that is, as compared with the pota-
to, six to twenty-five, or about one-fourth.

The preservation and restoration of cotton lands de-
pends on two practices, one mechanical, the other chemi-
cal ; the former involving no expense other than a little
well directed labor, the latter the restoration of a few
pounds of potash, lime and phosphorus, to each acre
from which a crop has been taken.

Of the two, probably the former is as important as the
latter ; on hill lands very much more so.

Under these two heads the subject will be considered.

First. — Circle plowing and ditching.

Second. — The nature and amount of fertilizers required
by cotton.

Several circumstances conspire to make the deterioration
of upland cotton soils by washing very great. In the first
place, the cotton soils are all soft, light, and porous, " as
mellow as an ash-heap." In a natural state, they are kept
in place by the roots of the trees,. leaves, and the tough
cane roots, and fallen canes, which are the natural growth
of that climate and soil.

When all these are removed by clearing and the plow,
what should keep the mould from being carried by the
washing of copious rains down the sharp hill-sides, and
swept away into the swollen streams ?

Consider, also, that the requirements of cotton call for
frequent plowing and hoeing ; so that all weeds and grass
are destroyed, and no little roots remain to hold the sur-
face in a sod. The cotton root is small and smooth, going
directly down into the subsoil. Nor is the surface of the
country locked up from the abrasion of the rain, by those

COTTON CULTURE. 103

penetrating frosts that, north of the Ohio and the Poto-
mac, for four or five months of each year, keep every peb-
ble in place, and open the surface in April in precisely the
same condition in which it was left in December.

It would not seem to demand any remarkable inventive
power to accommodate the mode of plowing to the re-
quirements of the cotton soil in the United States ; but
nothing like circle plowing has been in general practice
until within twenty years past.

The State Geologist of Mississippi, in that part of his
report which relates to cotton culture, says the idea was
first suggested by Thomas Jefferson, who had seen the
peasants of France conforming the curve of their farrows
with the slope of the hills on which they were plowing.
Mr. Jefferson was, for many years, a correspondent of Sir
William Dunbar, who had extensive plantations on the
steep but fertile hill lands that extend from the Missis-
sippi River, near Natchez, eastward to the Pine woods,
which, at the distance of thirty miles from the river, cover
the greater part of the country. Mr. Dunbar is said to
have been the first to practice circle plowing in Mississip-
pi. The simple good sense of the innovation on the old
and ruinous mode, at once recommended itself, and it be-
came almost universal among all enterprizing and well in-
formed planters through the South. But millions of acres
had been well nigh ruined and thrown out to sedge grass
and the foxes, before the improved mode was brought into
practice. • In that part of Mississippi where it was first
adopted, the plowmen have acquired great skill and a
practiced eye, so that, give a man a good two-horse plow,
and he will engage to run it in such, a way that in the
softest soil, spread over an irregular group of steep hills,
hardly a ton of mould shall be washed into the bottoms
during the most rainy season.

Probably the best way to begin this system is in con-

104 COTTON CULTURE.

nection with a series of circle ditches. These are laid out
and made in the following manner.

Determine by experiments, or observe from the charac-
ter and extent of the wash in a circular furrow, the fall
that must be given a ditch in order that the soil at the
bottom of it may not wash in gullies during a hard rain.
In many lands this fall must not exceed an inch in ten
feet, or one foot in a hundred. Commence now at the
foot of the hill, at the point where it is desirable to have
the waters of the hill-side discharged, and with a survey-
or's level ascertain the point which is three hundred feet
distant and three feet higher than the feet of the observer.
Mark these points by stakes, marked No. 1 and 2, and
thus proceed from stake No. 2 to stake No. 3, until sev-
eral hundred feet are laid off. The curves and irre^ulari-

£3

ties of the hill-side may not permit you to take observa-
tions of three hundred feet ; in that case make the obser-
vations shorter and the stakes more numerous, but keep-
ing the slope the same. Now run a furrow with a double
plow from the first stake to the second, and so on over all
the ground surveyed. Throw off t\vo or three more fur-
rows in the same way, and then let hands with hoes and
shovels haul all the loose earth into one ridge. The
spring of the year is the proper time for doing this, after
the heaviest of the early rains. Then, when bedding up
for a crop, be careful not to disturb these ridges. Their
bottoms should be dressed off smooth and level, and the
ridge trodden quite firm. In working the crop, pay some
attention to these ditches, keeping the bed smooth, and
filling up any little washes that occur, but being careful
not to break the surface of the ridges or banks. If they
soon become covered with grass, weeds, and scrub pines,
it will be all the better. These ditches will take the wa-
ter as it comes pouring down the hill in a violent rain,
and convey it away down a slope so gentle that no wash-
ing can take place.

COTTON CULTURE. 105

Iii cultivating the land that has been thus prepared, let
the plowing correspond in direction and slope to these
ditches. In this manner, all the middles between the beds
will have the same fall, that is, one foot in a hundred ;
and, except in very long and violent storms, no water will
pass over from one ridge to the other, that is, no wash
will ever cross the ridges or beds. But when the rain is
very copious, the circle ditches are at hand with a firm,
sodded bank, to arrest the destructive torrent and confine
the waters to their prescribed courses.

In this manner, all the fertilizing properties of the soil
may be retained in it, and directed to the growth of useful
plants ; whereas, if washing is freely permitted, the hill-
side becomes nothing but a series of sluices for carrying
off some of the best constituents of the mould or earth
above.

The above rule of one foot in a hundred is not given as
a specific. In some localities it will do ; on other soils it
is too steep. Judgment and experience only will give the
true grade. The plan above recommended differs but lit-
tle from that described by Mr. Forman in his paper, pub-
lished in the Patent Office Reports for 1852.

Mr. Forman recommends changing the gra<^e of the
circle ditch every fifty yards, making it steeper and
steeper as the bottom of the hill is reached.

Unless the nature of the soil changes materially, I do
not see the propriety of Mr. Forman's suggestion. If a
fall of one inch in twelve feet is proper near the top of the
hill, why is not that the best grade on the middle and near
the bottom of the slope?

He proposes a fall of one inch in twelve feet for the first
fifty yards, counting from the summit; two inches in
twelve feet for the next fifty yards; four in twelve feet
for the next fifty, and so on to the bottom.

For most hill lands, in the cotton States, a grade of one
inch in ten feet for the entire distance will be found better.
5*

106 COTTOX CULTURE.

As a cheap yet effective tool for laying off this grade,
the following is given. It is Mr. Forman's, with one or
two modifications.

Select a piece of ash or oak, just ten feet long, one inch
thick, and four inches wide. Mortice it into a leg or sup-
port of pine, three feet long, and two inches square.

Make another leg three feet and one inch long, and cut
the mortice several inches long, so that the bar or lath can
be moved up or down so as to vary the length of the fore
leg, as compared with the hind leg, two or three inches.

This may be omitted entirely if cheapness is an object
and the bar fastened by screws, which can be drawn so as
to make any necessary variation. If put together so that
each leg shall be of the same length, the variation can
easily be made by screwing a block of an inch or more in
thickness on the foot of the front leg.

To complete this instrument and fit it for use, it will be
necessary to fasten on it a small spirit-level ; this can be
screwed upon the side of the bar near one end, or on the
top of it. Probably a long slender phial, nearly filled
with some colored fluid and fastened to the top of the bar,
would give a sufficient degree of accuracy. Now having
determined upon the slope of the ditch, arrange the length
of the legs accordingly. Your assistant stands at the
point where you wish the water to be discharged, that is,
fit the bottom of the hill, and he has the hind leg. He
carries a handful of pins in his hand. The operator at the
front leg moves that end either up or down the slope, un-
til the bar is level. Mark the beginning point with a pin,
and move on, setting the hind leg in the track just made
by the fore leg, and sticking a pin. The path thus indi-
cated by the row of pins is the line of the hill-side ditch.
It should go three or four inches into the subsoil, and care
should be exercised so as not to have short turns, as their
effect is to throw the descending water against the em-
bankment.

COTTON CULTURE. 107

After a violent shower or a long washing rain, it will be
necessary to walk through the ditches to stop the washes
and throw out the bottoms with a hoe. In these visits
the farmer will often see slight changes that can be made
such as changing the grade at the turns.

Fig. 19. — INSTRUMENT FOR GRADING.

a. Lath or bar 12 feet long, one inch thick, four inches
wide, with g, a spirit-level screwed upon it.

b. Hind leg, 2 inches square, 3 feet long.

c. Front leg, 2 inches square, 2^- feet long.

d. Sliding leg, 2 inches square, 3 feet long, graduated
and numbered from o up and down six inches each way.

e. Thumb-screw and bolt, by which the sliding leg is
made fast at any required point ; the mark c, on the front
leg, corresponding to o, on the sliding leg.

The instrument of which the cut is given, is that de-
scribed by Mr. Forman. One much cheaper than this, as
above indicated, will answer all purposes.

In many cases the feet might be 15 or 20 feet apart.
This would make the laying off much more rapid.
Where the ground is not sodded, instead of using pins,
the drawing of the hind leg along the line will make a
sufficient mark to guide the eye of the plowman.

It will also be found practically convenient to let a
plowman follow close upon the rear operator, guiding his
horse by him. A day's practice will enable two persons
to move rapidly enough with the level to keep a plow in
steady motion behind them, and, after a good plowman
has followed the level a few days, his eye will become so

108 COTTON CULTURE.

educated that he can lay off ditches without any level,
except on very irregular ground.

We come now to a consideration of the proper manures
for the preservation and restoration of cotton lands, and
the best manner of applying them. The harvesting of the
product of an acre, for instance, planted in cotton, re-
moves from the soil about sixteen hundred pounds of or-
ganic matter, of which four hundred pounds is in the form
of cotton-wool, or lint, and the balance in cotton seed.
No part or constituent of the wool is ever returned.

Let us now see what chemical substances are abstracted
in taking away this wool. Suppose a hundred parts of
cotton-wool be burned to an ash, and this ash subjected to
chemical tests. What will appear to be its constituents ?
Thirty-one per cent., or nearly one-third, is potassa; seven-
teen, or less than a fifth, is lime ; and twelve and a half
per cent., or just one-eighth, is phosphoric acid ; a little
magnesia, and a little sulphuric acid are also found.

Thus, for every ten thousand pounds of cotton-wool,
which might be expected to grow on twenty-five acres,
sixty pounds of the above mentioned ingredients are with-
drawn from the soil. That is, of phosphoric acid, twelve
pounds; of lime, seventeen pounds; and of potassa,
thirty-one pounds. Suppose this process to be repeated
for twenty years upon the same twenty-five acres. There
will have been withdrawn from the soil during that pe-
riod two hundred and forty pounds of phosphoric acid,
three hundred and fifty pounds of lime, and six hundred
and twenty pounds of potassa. Such is the rate at which
the wool or staple alone of the cotton exhausts the soil.
The consumption is, certainly, very moderate. If a little
more than half a ton of these chemical substances were
incorporated with the soil every twenty years, or what
would be better, sixty pounds a year, the twenty-five acre
field would not decrease in fertility.

Suppose now that the cotton seed as well us the wool is

COTTON CULTURE. 109

not returned to the soil. The composition of the ash of
cotton seed has been found to be as follows : sixty-two
per cent., or nearly two-thirds, is phosphate of lime; thir-
ty-two per cent., or nearly one-third, is phosphate of po-
tassa ; the balance is made up of a little sulphate of po-
tassa, a little silica, with slight traces of the carbonates of
lime, magnesia, and potassa.

Thus it appears that, as a dressing or fertilizer for cot-
ton lands, no substance is superior to cotton seed, and
when this is used as fully as possible, that is, when all the
seed of a crop is returned to the soil as manure, except
what is necessary to germinate the crop of the following
year, the consumption of chemical constituents in the soil
is very slow, being at the rate of sixty pounds for twenty-
five acres, or a little over two pounds to the acre. Of the
three mineral ingredients abstracted by the cotton-wool,
two are easily replaced, the potash and the lime.. Com-
mon wood ashes, and plaster, or slaked lime, or bones
burned or crushed, will easily supply this demand. The
requirement for phosphoric acid is not so easily met.
The demand for it is moderate and the consumption slow,
being at the rate of only half a pound to the acre, but the
necessity for this element, in order to produce a healthy
plant, is imperative ; and in all soils that are not alluvial,
that is, where there is not a great abundance of fine vege-
table mould, the demand for phosphorus is probably the
reason why diseases of various sorts, such as the rust and
the rot, attack the plant.

In addition to lime and ashes, some fertilizer containing
the phosphates must be used. Compost, or barn-yard
manure, and bone manure, will supply this element.
Weeds abounding in the alkalies furnish profitable vege-
table matter for making a good compost. Muck or peat,
which is decayed vegetable matter in mass, contains a
large amount of the phosphates and«the alkalies.

To give a summary then, of the best manure for cotton

110 COTTON CULTURE.

lands, we may say : Make a compost heap by hauling
muck to the barn-yard, and allowing hogs to root it over
and' wallow upon it. The droppings of barn-yard fowls
should be added as being particularly rich in the phos-
phates. Some lime and ashes may profitably be sprinkled
from time to time upon the pile. When this compost ma-
nure is rich in all these elements, it should be applied
liberally, and in connection with it, the mode of plowing
and ditching above described should be employed so as to
retain upon the soil all the fertilizing salts. If twenty-five
acres of land, which is naturally good cotton land, is
dressed with, say, a cord to the acre of compost manure
such as is described, there is no reason in the nature of
things why it should not, for ten years at least, and prob-
ably for twenty, continue to produce a bale to the acre.

Of the condensed fertilizers it is probable that guano,
the most powerful of all the manures, being the ordure of
sea birds and containing a large amount of bone earth,
and being also particularly rich in the phosphates, is the
best. Next to guano may be mentioned crushed bones,
or bone ashes ; and it may be well in this connection to
give Liebig's rule for the preparation of bone manure.

"Pour over the crushed bones or bone ashes half their
weight of sulphuric acid, diluted with four parts of water.
Add one hundred parts of water, after the former mixture
has been digested for twenty-four hours. Sprinkle this
mixture over the field immediately before plowing. By
this action, in a few seconds, the free acids unite with the
bases contained in the earth. A neutral salt is formed in
a very fine state of division, that is very uniformly and
evenly dispersed through the soil."

By this manner of applying manure, it is rendered so
fine and so thoroughly mixed with the soil that the roots
of the plants find it in every direction.

The practice of manuring in the drill, or in the hill,
which is successful with corn, does not answer at all with

COTTOX CULTURE. Ill

cotton. Throw a shovelful of strong stable manure into
a shallow pit and cover it with an inch of earth, and you
have a bed on which Indian corn will be almost certain to
sprout, and where, in a favorable season, it will grow vig-
orously.

If a dozen or more cotton seeds were dropped on a pre-
cisely similar bed, the probabilities are that not a single
one would ever germinate or produce a healthy plant.
They would all rot. The reason of this was very carefully
investigated some years since by Dr. Cloud, a cotton
planter in Alabama, one of the most intelligent, as well as
industrious, agriculturists that ever gave thorough and pa-
tient investigation to all the details and reasons of success-
ful cotton growing.

Dr. Cloud at first manured generously in the hill, allow-
ing half a gallon of compost to each plant. The cotton
grew finely after it came up, but he could get no stand by
this method. He found, after experimenting and careful
investigation, that the unnatural warmth and dryness pro-
duced by a mass of strong manure, is fatal to the germi-
nation of cotton seed. " The cotton seed," says he, " in the
process of germination, attracts from the surrounding soil
and from the atmosphere an unusual amount of water as
compared with other seed undergoing this process. Any
artificial condition of the soil which concentrates immedi-
ately about the cotton seed at this time an undue quantity
of alkaline, gaseous matter, causes the fluid contained in
the tender, reticulated or mesh-like, incipient, vegetable
fibre, to undergo a species of fermentation which, of
course, destroys the vitality of the young plant. Cotton
is subject to this influence where a quantity of good ma-
nure, either compost, guano, or chemical fertilizers have
been used in the hill.

" The tap-root of the cotton plant does not make its
way into the soil a perfectly organized root ; the radix or
tap, leaving the seed at the small end, plunges directly

112 COTTON CULTURE.

downward, and commences pouring out a semi-fluid sub-
stance which passes downward, partly by the force of
gravity.

u This substance is remarkably delicate and fragile, easily
broken up and disturbed by any foreign or unkindly pres-
ence. It is the mould in which the tap-root is formed.
Thus it is easy to understand that an unnatural alkaliza-
tion, or the warmth and ferment produced by fresh and
strong manure in the close vicinity of a vegetable process
so delicate, should affect and generally destroy its vitality."

After making this discovery, Dr. Cloud, by no means
ceased the use of compost manures on his cotton. He
spread it on broadcast and plowed it in.

He communicated the results of his various experiments
and discoveries to the Albany Cultivator, and the follow-
ing condensed instructions on scientific cotton culture may
be taken as a summary of Dr. Cloud's method, with vari-
ous additions and suggestions derived from the experience
of the author of this Treatise.

"High farming," when cotton is the chief crop, does not
consist in drawing large crops from virgin or from alluvial
mould, returning nothing and exhausting any soil that is
not, like the alluvions of the Mississippi or the Nile,
strictly inexhaustible. The truly successful cotton planter
is not the man who manages, year by year, to take a
thousand bales from a thousand acres of Mississippi bot-
tom or the black cane lands of middle Alabama. The
really admirable manager is one who takes average land,
the natural growth of which is pine or forky-leaf black
oak, or small white oak, keeps it in as good condition as
he found it, or even better, raises his own meats, vegeta-
bles and wool, and one year with another takes as much
cotton from an acre as his neighbors, working in the old
way, take from three !

By what system of agriculture, now, can these results
be obtained ?

COTTON CULTURE. 113

First of all, let the planter who aspires to brilliant
success in his profession prepare his lands so as to prevent
washing, and retain in the soil all the fertilizing salts he
finds there, and all he may add by generous manuring.
The precise methods by which this is done are given in
detail in the first pages of this chapter.

Now let him arrange for a rotation of crops as follows.
Divide the plowed land into three parts or tracts, not by
fences, but " in your mind's eye, Horatio," assigning for
each farm laborer five acres in cotton, ten in corn, rye,
wheat, oats, barley and potatoes, according to soil and
climate, and allowing five to remain fallow. Calculate to
have on the farm stock enough to consume all the food
that grows on those ten acres per hand, mules, horses,
oxen, cows, sheep, goats and poultry, and lay it down as
a first principle that no manure is to be wasted. For that
purpose provide a series of stock pens on the most level
land that the place affords, fence them high, and throw up
a little bank at the fence, so the tendency of the wash
will be towards the centre. Here erect a shed on four
posts, the ends that enter the ground being charred. Let
the shed be about twenty feet square and hip-roofed.

Let every animal on the place be confined at night in
these enclosures, or in stables, and provide an abundance
of litter. Leaves from the forest, and particularly pine
straw, is better even than wheat or oat straw, as it is
shorter and contains more potash. Moisture is needed in
order to rot any litter you may use. Yet, if the manure
heap is too wet, you carry an unnecessary amount of wa-
ter into the field. Hence the best plan is, to scrape the
cattle yards on wet days, piling the compost under the
sheds, there to ferment and decay. As soon as a yard is
scraped down, cover with fresh litter from the forest ; this
also can be more conveniently gathered on wet days, or
immediately after a ram, while it is yet too moist for
plowing. When the successive layers are thus collected

114 COTTON CULTURE.

under the shed, other and more concentrated fertilizers
may be added. If your soil is deficient in lime, sprinkle,
say a bushel, every time the yard is scraped. Wood ashes
never come amiss on any soil. Sprinkle over the compost
heaps all the ashes the place affords, never allowing a
shovelful to be thrown away or to become leached by the
rain. Obtain a few pounds of sulphuric acid, and after it
has eaten up all the bones and decayed animal matter on
the place, sprinkle it upon the compost beds. The de-
cayed leaves and the ashes will afford the potash your
crops want ; the bones and the ordure will yield the phos-
phoric acid and the lime.

In this manner, when March comes, there will be five
hundred bushels of compost manure for every acre of cot-
ton. The land upon which it is to be spread was fallow
the year before, and thus • the cocoons of the Boll-worm
are all dead. Mark off the field by a scooter plow (unless
the old rows are visible) into lines ; the first, fifteen feet
from the fence, and the others, thirty feet apart. On these
lines or rows deposit the manure, in heaps of ten bushels
each. This is easily done by having the capacity of the
cart twenty bushels, and hoeing out half at the first heap
and dumping the rest of the load for the second. In this
way the manure is evenly distributed at the rate of ten
bushels to nine hundred square feet, which is within a
small fraction of five hundred bushels per acre. With
compost manure, made up as described, and especially that
to winch ashes, lime, dissolved bones or guano has been
added, this allowance is heavy manuring and very thrifty
plants may be expected. Accordingly, the rows should
be laid off wide ; five feet is none too wide. Mark the
beds by running a plow at this interval that will make a
deep, narrow, furrow. Now spread the compost, throwing
some, but not a great deal, into this furrow, and let the
turn or mould-board plow follow, casting two furrows
toward and into this first trench, and continue running un*

COTTOX CULTTTBE.

til all the middles are broken out and the manure
covered in. v| /

This should be done a month before
from the first to the tenth of April, if the season^rs^,
ciently warm and dry, harrow the beds and mark not
the line of the rows, making them perfectly uniform and
straight, but by cross plowing lay off the distance of the
plants from each other in the drill.

Probably with this high manuring, thirty or thirty-six
inches ought to be allowed. Plant by dropping three or
four seeds in the drill at the point indicated by the marker.
The best way of preparing seeds is to roll them in a mix-
ture of lime and ashes, with which a little guano has been
mixed, having soaked them previously in stable manure,
to which salt and water have been added. Treated thus,
germination will be almost certain and prompt. As soon
as the third leaf appears, go over the crop with the hoe,
for, with the thorough plowing and harrowing, very little
grass will have made its appearance in ten days.

Select the thriftiest plant and destroy all the others,
thus thinning out to a stand at once, and leaving the fields
perfectly clean. In this way, all the vigor of the soil, and
the dressing which has been thus generously applied, is
concentrated upon the plants, and they may be expected
to thrive and grow very rapidly.

The cultivation can be done almost entirely with the
plow and scraper after the second hoeing. Twice, at
least, before the plants attain their growth, the scraper
may be run each way ; and as there is entire uniformity
throughout the field, the rows being exactly five feet
apart, and the plants in the row precisely three feet asun-
der, there will be no difficulty in running the wing of the
scraper within two inches of the plant on all sides.

After the first of June the limbs of the plants in the
rows will commence to interlock, so that the plows can be
run only between the beds, that is, in the five foot inter-

116 COTTON CULTURE.

val. Here the plowing may be continued through the
greater part of July, as frequently as the condition of the
crop requires it.

Now, what returns may be expected from a field thus
manured, thus planted, and thus cultivated? Dr. Cloud
tells us that in this way he made at least double crops and
sometimes treble, that is, he took as much cotton from
his five acres as his neighbors from their ten or fifteen
acres, cultivated in the old style.

It will be observed that cotton seed is not recommended
as a direct or immediate manure for the cotton plant. It
has been found that cotton thrives better on the second
year after a liberal application of cotton-seed manure than
on the first. It seems that cotton seed is, at the first, too
heating as a manure, creating as it does some fermentation
in the drill. Afterward, when fermentation is ended,
there is a tendency to an undue stimulation of the plant to
the production of woody fibre. In other words, the plant
that is strongly stimulated by cotton seed, tends to growth
rather than productiveness. For this reason, it is found
better to reserve that part of cotton seed intended for ma-
nures, and apply it as a direct and powerful fertilizer to
the corn. In this manner a very fine crop is taken from
the field the next year after the corn is harvested, and the
force of the cotton seed and of the compost manuring of
the previous year, become sensible in the third year in the
crop of wheat, barley, oats, millet, peas, or potatoes, which
are grown on the second year after the cotton. On the
fourth year the land is permitted to rest and " enjoy its
Sabbath."

By this system of rotation the cotton-louse, the rust,
the dry rot, and the Boll-worm, are quite sure to be pre-
vented, and the only risks which the planter takes in his
cotton are the dangers from caterpillar, the Army-worm,
or an early frost. By promptness and energy the two
former may be successfully contended with, and the more

COTTON CULTURE. 117

so as the cotton field is only half as large as that com-
monly put in cultivation by the same number of hands.

By following this method of thorough manuring and
systematic rotation, the certainty that the planter may feel
in his cotton crop is much greater, and the large amount
of cereals and edibles which he raises, and the abundance
of stock which he consequently keeps upon his place, ren-
der him much more independent of his merchant in case
of a failure of the cotton crop ; and he is also much more
able to prescribe the time of selling, and the price, than if
he had a heavy balance against him for pork, beef, flour,
and clothes, already advanced by his factor. But the
crowning advantage or recommendation of this system is,
that his lands are all the time growing better. The fer-
tilizing salts, incorporated with the soil in the five hundred
bushels per acre of rich compost manure, followed by a
liberal dressing of cotton seed the next year, are not ex-
hausted by the three successive crops of cotton, corn, and
cereals which are taken from the land. As the surface is
so ditched and plowed that the fertilizing properties added
in the manures are all retained, it opens richer on the
fourth year after enjoying its rest of one year, than it did
at the commencement of the former series, so that in six-
teen or twenty years of this "high farming," which is
nothing more than true farming, the cotton grower may
confidently expect to see his plants standing six and eight
feet high, the branches interlocking on both sides, each
plant loaded with bolls, and the field yielding considerably
over two bales to the acre ; while within rifle shot he may
see the lands of his neighbors covered with little stunted
plants twenty inches high, admitting of free passage along
rows that are four feet wide, suffering every year from
some of the diseases that befall, or the enemies that attack
the plant, so that the average yield, one year with anoth-
er, will not be much over half a bale to the acre.

This almost incredible difference is wholly due to a

118 COTTOX CULTURE.

strict adherence to what should be regarded as a cardinal
principle in all farming operations. That is, always to re-
turn to the soil more fertilizing properties in the form of
manure than are removed in the crops • and to cultivate
every crop with such thoroughness that the entire produc-
tive energy of the soil and its constituents will be con-
served and concentrated upon the plant in cultivation.

Another advantage which the cotton grower will reap
by this system of generous manuring, and particularly by
the use of fertilizers which are rich in phosphates, is the
improvement of his seed, and consequently an increase in
the length and fineness of his staple ; for an excellent
quality and an abundant yield of cotton-wool can no
more be expected from seeds which are dwarfish, than
large clips of wool can be taken from small, half-starved
sheep. The improved varieties of cotton seed which are
introduced from time to time, and whose merits are loudly
vaunted, are nothing more than the product of common
varieties, grown in a favorable season, on fertile soil, and
in the best part of the cotton zone.

Improve the cotton seed, and your staple is directly
augmented in value. It is on this account that guano has
been found an excellent fertilizer for cotton. It does not
stimulate the growth of a plant so rapidly as some other
manures, but it tends directly to perfect the seed and the
staple. It can be used to great profit. Ten dollars worth
of it, or three hundred pounds per acre, properly applied
to land that, without it, might produce a thousand pounds
of cotton, will double the crop, due allowance being made
for the casualties and vicissitudes affecting the cotton
plant, as guano is no specific against any of its ills, except
the lice and sore-shin.

It should be remarked that guano as well as compost
manure ought to be applied early in the season, and well
blended with the soil by the plow and harrow. It is a
sort of medicine to the soil, so to speak, and its immediate

COTTON CULTURE. 119

effects should have time to pass away before the seeds are
presented for germination. As guano is particularly rich
in phosphate, it is well to use it in combination with a fer-
tilizer that supplies some other principal constituent of the
plant, as, for instance, lime. Hence, it is recommended to
mix a bushel of guano with half a bushel of plaster of
Paris, or sulphate of lime, and apply it at the time of the
first plowing, when the beds are thrown up. The effect
of one will be to stimulate the fibrous growth of the
plant and give it size ; of the other to increase its produc-
tiveness, by enlarging the size of the seeds, increasing
their vigor, and thus producing a staple that is longer
and more finely colored by the oil that is drawn from the
seed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE VARIOUS KINDS OF COTTON CULTIVATED IN THE
UNITED STATES.

There are two leading varieties of cotton cultivated in
the United States, the black seed and the green seed.
The black seed is botanically known as the tree cotton, or
Gossypium arboreum, and came from India. The green
seed, or bearded cotton, is of Mexican or West India
origin. The nankin or yellow differs from the Mexican
mostly in the color of its staple, it being of a pale yellow
hue. Peruvian cotton has been introduced and cultivated
to some extent ; it has black seeds which cling firmly to-
gether, while the seeds of the Sea Island are separate and
easily parted from the wool.

The cultivation of the Sea Island is local, and the
amount produced in this country, as compared with the

120 COTTON CULTURE.

Upland or Greeii Seed, is as one to one hundred. As tlie
soil, climate, and mode of ginning of the Sea Island are
all different from the Upland, some account will be given
at the close of this chapter.

The Mexican seed was introduced from that country
about the beginning of the present century. The story is
that our Consul at the City of Mexico, noticing the supe-
rior quality of the staple grown in that country, asked
permission of that Government to bring home a quantity
of the seed. His request was refused ; but afterwards,
when dining with one of the Ministers, he was told that
he could not take cotton seed out of the country, but the
Mexican Government would make no objection to his ex-
porting as many dolls as he might wish to. The Consul
took the hint, and ordered several hundred dolls to be
stuffed with choice cotton seed. Thus the famous " Mexi-
can seed," known from James River to the Rio Grande,
became domesticated in the United States. Its peculiarity
seems to be its adaptation to a dry, uniform climate. The
wool or staple is white, with a faint tinge of yellow, after
it has laid for some time in the seed. In. a dry season,
when the supplies of moisture have been moderate, and in
small quantities at a time, the staple of the Mexican is
long, even and soft ; the bolls open wide, and the weight
of the seeds pulls the wool out, and causes it to hang in a
long silken tuft or handful, which, if not picked for some
time after opening, is liable to become soiled with mud and
sand, or, after frost, filled with fragments from the leaves
and pods.

A number of planters in the s6uthern part of Mississip-
pi, near where Rodney now stands, were among the first,
if not the very first, to pay attention to the improvement
of cotton seed. They produced an excellent quality,
which was much in demand in all parts of the South.
Their bags were marked "Petit Gulf," the name of a
small shipping point on the river where an eddy in the

COTTOX CULTURE.

stream made a little bay or gulf. From this circumstance
the seed was universally known as " Petit Gulf," or Gulf
Seed, and under that name has been so extensively used
in all parts of the South, except the Sea Islands, that it
may be regarded as the seed from which the " American
Upland" of commerce has been produced. Beginning
with the year 1820, and from that time forward, various
planters in different parts of the cotton growing States
have devoted themselves to the development and sale of
improved varieties of cotton seed, and certain styles of
cotton have for two, three, or four years, enjoyed a great,
though ephemeral popularity, and then, as suddenly, been
pushed aside for a new reigning favorite.

The improvement of cotton seed as a business, and the
sale of the improved varieties, has enabled quite a number
of prominent and enterprising planters throughout the
South to realize handsome fortunes. It is probable that,
as a manure, cotton seed is seldom worth more than twen-
ty-five cents a bushel, or, at least, twenty-five cents judic-
iously expended in making good compost or barn-yard
manure will produce as much fertilizing power as can be
obtained from a bushel of cotton seed. But a good
quality of Petit Gulf, or Mexican, commands at least fifty
cents, and the choice varieties, such as the " Sugar Loaf,"
the " Brown," the " Hundred Seed," and many others that
could be named, such as the "Banana," the " Multibolus,"
the "Prolific," under ordinary circumstances, command
from one to three dollars per bushel. A bushel of cotton
seed weighs from twenty-five to thirty pounds. An acre
produces, of the cotton wool, say four hundred pounds,
and of the seed fourteen hundred pounds. Thus, for ma-
nure, the product of an acre in cotton seed is worth eleven
dollars.

It is practicable for every cotton grower by selec-
tion, improvement, and judicious cultivation, to pro-
duce an improved seed. Now, how is this to be done ?
6

122 COTTON CULTURE.

In general, it may be said, that cotton seed, like corn, po-
tatoes, or wheat, is improved by cultivating the plant in
the best manner, under the most favorable circumstances,
and then selecting from each stalk those bolls which are
the largest, the finest, and the most perfectly matured.
The seeds from these bolls are, after ginning, to be again
picked over, all that are blasted or imperfectly shaped,
rejected, and the remainder carefully tended, so as not to
become fermented, or in any manner damaged before
planting time of the following year.

Probably as much depends upon locality as upon any
other circumstance with respect to the improvement of
cotton seed. Choice varieties never come from the rank,
moist lands of the Mississippi Valley, near Natchez;
neither does the neighborhood of Memphis afford superior
seed. The first improvements in cotton seed in this coun-
try were made, as above stated, by painstaking with the
original Mexican seed, on the part of a few planters living
on the Mississippi River, not far below Vicksburg. The
immediate vicinity of Yicksburg has also been remarkable
for yielding superior varieties. -Colonel Vick, of that city,
a descendant of the man from whom the place is named,
has been the most persevering and the most successful of
all the Mississippi planters in the art of perfecting cotton.

Another very successful and somewhat more noted agri-
culturist, remarkable for the great variety as well as the
excellence of his seed, is Mr. M. W. Phillips, of Edwards,
Mississippi, a small town in Hinds County, a few miles
north of the capital of the State. In 1848, Mr. Phillips
wrote : " The seed most relied on in Mississippi and Lou-
isiana is Mexican seed, known in Carolina and Georgia
as 'Petit -Gulf seed, because there first planted and im-
proved, on the hills around Rodney, Mississippi, where
the improvement began ; but there is just as good seed,
at present, elsewhere, as in that vicinity. We plant
'Sugar-loaf,' or 'Prolific,' ' Lewis' Prolific,' 'Yicks' Hun-

COTTON CULTURE. 123

dred Seed,' ' Guatemala,' ' Brown Seed,' and others. Ex-
cept the ' Guatemala,' they are all, I believe, mere selec-
tions from the Mexican."

Probably the most noted and, on many accounts, the
best varieties or developments from the original "Petit
Gulf," are the "Prolific " and the " Sugar-loaf " seeds. A
planter in Hinds County, writing upon the characteristics
of the latter variety in 1848, says : " This day, being
called into my field south of my pasture, where I have my
selected 'Sugar-loaf seed planted, I was so forcibly
struck with the prospect, that I conceive it my duty to
draw attention thereto. I saw, repeatedly, limbs with six,
eight, ten and twelve bolls and forms, which were not
that many inches long ; I could span so as to reach ten
without any exertion. I have forty acres planted with
Sugar-loaf seed, and think, I can reasonably calculate on
fifty bales, and I do not know of any other forty acres of
Petit Gulf seed, in this region, which promises forty bales.
My seeds have been planted remote from others for these
two years ; they were selected from the field by myself,
assisted by a very careful laborer ; yet I find a great ten-
dency in this seed, as in all the improved varieties, to run
back, which can only be guarded against by careful,
yearly selection."

The same agriculturist, writing seven years later, in
'1855, gives the following summary with regard to the
improved cotton seed in that vicinity. " We will plant as
nearly an entire crop, as we have good seed, with the
'Cluster' cotton seed. This is the original name, but
known now by as many different styles as there are per-
sons who desire to make money by selling seed. We ex-
pect to plant 'Silk,' ' Hundred Seed,' 'Sugar-loaf,' 'Draw,'
and small parcels of others. The ' Cluster,' or ' Banana,'
has been much improved. The best now on sale is
' Boyd's Prolific ' ; from this I have culled very carefully
for three years. Many who have seen this selection deem

124 COTTON CULTURE.

it better than the original accidental variety ; for I learn
from Mr. Boyd that the ' Prolific ' seed, which has become
so noted, originated from an accidental stalk which he
found among his cotton, which he considered very remark-
able for the number of bolls it contained. He carefully
preserved all the seed of this extraordinary specimen, and
very properly names it the 'Prolific.' 'Silk' is perhaps
better for all descriptions of land ; many of my friends
prefer it to 'Banana,' objecting to the latter for poor
lands, and also for rich fresh land. On the first the forms
dry up, and on the latter the stalk becomes so rank, that
it breaks down. This latter defect can be remedied by
topping. ' Sugar-loaf is best upon new ground, where
the soil is rich. and the growth sweet gum. I have made
a bale and a quarter to the acre the first year the land was
cleared. The ' Hundred Seed ' still retains its popularity,
as suitable for rich, fresh land."

As an instance of the manner in which many somewhat
celebrated varieties have originated, the following circum-
stance is subjoined. In 1847, Colonel II. W. Vick,
who had been . for fifteen or twenty years selecting and
improving his seed, made up eight small parcels of cotton
in the seed, and sent them to Mr. Phillips, requesting his
examination and the results of his experimenting. One
of these packages was marked " Belle Creole," not known
at all as "a distinct variety, but resembling the "Silk."
Mr. Phillips planted these eight varieties in the spring,
cultivated and picked them with his own hands, taking
special care in the selection of the finest bolls on each
plant. From the growth of the seventh package he
selected a small number of the finest bolls, and sent some
to Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, and another
package to J. V. Jones, a planter in Georgia, who was
quite well known as an agricultural writer under the sig-
nature of " Jethro." Out of compliment to Mr. Jones
this was called the " Jethro " seed, and is regarded as a

COTTON CULTURE. 2

very choice variety, and was produced, as we learn, from
Mr. Phillips, by Colonel Yick of Yicksburg, who selected
year after year those plants which yielded the softest and
the finest cotton, sent a package to a neighboring planter
who cultivated the seed carefully, and sent a package of
his seed to Georgia, where it attained celebrity for the
fineness and softness of the staple.

Some of the varieties of cotton seed were wonderfully
prized when first introduced, and commanded sums that
seem almost fabulous. For instance, the " Banana," a seed
that became famous about twenty years ago, at first sold
for a hundred dollars a bushel. It was introduced by a
planter in Warren Bounty, Mississippi, near Yicksburg,
and the production was supposed to exceed anything that
had before been known. It was almost identical with the
"Hogan" seed, and some paid ten cenfs apiece for
" Hogan " seeds. Yet, for some reason, probably the de-
terioration natural to a careless selection of seed, it was
not three years before " Banana " could have been bought
for fifty cents a bushel. The same is true of the " Masto-
don," which came in repute about the same time. Mr.
Ably, a very sensible and ingenious planter, near Yazoo
City, and Mr. D. F. Miller, of Concordia Parish, Louisi-
ana, took prizes on "Mastodon" cotton ; and as the lint in
this variety clings to the seed a little more firmly than the
others, an improvement, or a modification rather, of the
ordinary gin, was made to suit it. And yet, a few years
after, a writer in the Cultivator, from Cayuga, Mississippi,
speaks as follows of this famous variety :

" If you recollect, the ' Mastodon ' was introduced some
four or five years since, and I remember when there was
not sufficient seed in the neighborhood to supply the de-
mand at five dollars per bushel. I am acquainted with
the gentleman who first planted and sold the seed in this
State, and it is generally believed that his profit was much
greater from the sale of the * Mastodon ' seed, than the

126 COTTOX CULTURE.

proceeds of his entire crop for two years ; but at this
time there is not a seed of it growing, to my knowledge."

Some varieties, as the "Brown" and the "Multiboll,"
and the u Okra," under favorable circumstances, produce
a plant that is very prolific in bolls, sometimes throwing
out twice as many as a common seed. But an objection
is very properly made to them, that the cotton hangs
loosely from the open boll, so that, if a stormy day occurs
in the latter part of October, or early in November, when
the fields are the whitest, a large part of the open cotton
is blown out and wasted. This is probably more than an
offset to the greater facility of picking.

As a summary of the whole matter of varieties in cot-
ton seed, a careful perusal of nearly every thing that has
been written upon the subject, together with the verbal
testimony of a large number of excellent planters, has
brought me to the following conclusions :

I. — Every cotton grower, who cultivates a good cotton
soil in the best part of the cotton belt, (the region be-
tween thirty-two and thirty-three north latitude,) can, in
a few years, produce a choice variety of cotton seed by
taking pains with any of the ordinary seed.

II. — This improvement is brought about by carefully
selecting the best bolls that open before frost, regard be-
ing had sometimes to the number of bolls upon the plant,
and sometimes to the fineness and softness of the staple.
By selecting the former, he may produce a seed famous
for its productiveness. By taking the latter, the variety
may have a high repute for the superior quality of the
lint. After ginning, the seed is sorted over, and well cared
for until the planting time of another year.

III. — All these improved varieties are quite certain to
" play out " in a few years, unless the same pains are taken
to sustain the character of the seed that were used to pro-
duce it. In other words, no variety will remain superior
unless the seed cotton is selected with care.

COTTOX CULTURE. 127

IV. — It always pays to be particular in collecting and
caring for the seed cotton of a place. The practical dif-
ference between good seed and bad, is this: By having
seed that produces a superior quality of cotton, the planter
may obtain from one to five cents more a pound for his
crop. By planting seeds remarkable for the largeness of
their yield, he may realize an increase of from one hundred
to three hundred pounds more of ginned cotton to the
acre.

V. — An enterprising, and pains-taking cotton grower,
by developing a superior quality of seed, and securing for
it a reputation, may make as much from the sale of his
seed, as lie does from that of his ginned cotton, — it being
understood, of course, that he is surrounded by planters
who, being careless with respect to their own seed cotton,
are always desirous to obtain improved varieties.

SEA ISLAND COTTON.

Edisto Island, south of Charleston, is the most favorable
part of the United States, vin respect to both soil and
climate, for the production of " Sea Island Cotton." It
has a sandy soil, but little above tide, which, penetrating
the island through numerous small channels, gives irreg-
ular shape to the plantations, but permits boats to come
to almost every man's door. The mud from salt marshes
is much used as manure, and is differently applied, accord-
ing to the taste and judgment of various planters. As
the soil is generally very light, it is unproductive, unless
manure is used ; and even with manure the average yield
of Sea Island cotton is not much more than half the av-
erage of Upland cotton. A sea-board planter, writing
from Liberty County, Georgia, in 1848, says that in eight-
een years his crops have averaged a fraction over three
acres per hand, the yield one hundred and thirty-seven
pounds per acre, and the net proceeds per hand, eighty-

128 COTTON CULTURE.

three dollars. During that period, the highest average
price paid was thirty-seven and a half cents per pound ;
the lowest, fourteen cents.

The Sea Island cotton is the product of a plant that
seems to have been first carried to the Bahama Islands
from the Island of Anguilla, whither it is "believed to have
been transported from Persia, and was introduced and
cultivated upon the islands along the coast of Georgia,
immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War.
The staple or filament of Sea Island cotton is exceedingly
long, silken, and delicate. To pay as well as the short
staple, or Upland cotton, the Sea Island must sell for
twice as much per pound. Since the year 1850, the price
has greatly advanced, so that Sea Island has, much of the
time, commanded three and four times as much per pound
as the ordinary staple.

About ten years ago, samples of Sea Island cotton,
grown on Edisto Island, together with a number of speci-
mens of the soil, were taken to Baltimore, and carefully
examined and analyzed by the State chemist. The
analysis of the seed and wool- gave results very similar to
the analysis of Upland cotton, given in the first part of
Chapter Third.

It may be well, however, to subjoin a few of the results
obtained by the Baltimore analysis. Taking two hundred
pounds as the average growth of Sea Island cotton upon
an acre, and adding the six hundred pounds removed in
seed, it was found that, reducing these eight hundred
pounds to ashes, and ascertaining the composition of the
ash, an ordinary crop removes each year from an acre a
little more than twenty-six and a half pounds of chemical
salts, of which a little more than nine pounds, or about
one-third, is potash, nearly nine pounds is phosphoric acid,
of sulphuric acid a little more than a pound, three and a
half of magnesia, and of lime nearly two pounds. The
principal difference between this and Upland cotton is in

COTTON CULTURE. 129

a substitution of magnesia for lime. The amount of pot-
ash is very nearly the same in both varieties. The Sea
Island has a little more phosphoric acid than the other,
and less lime. The soil upon which the two hundred
pounds of cotton, thus analyzed, was raised, was found to
be composed, as to its bulk, of nine-tenths of fine alluvial
sand, and one-tenth of a cement, consisting of sand, perox-
ide of iron, clay, lime, magnesia, and humus.

An examination of the cement, or that part of the soil
which is not entirely sand, shows that it is composed very
largely of a combination of sand and peroxide of iron, a
considerable amount of magnesia, and a small quantity of
lime. On account of the deficiency of lime, the cotton
plants are led to appropriate more abundantly magnesia,
a substance which, in its chemical character and proper-
ties, much resembles lime, and which, therefore, is capa-
ble of taking its place to some extent.

As to the directly nourishing properties of the soil, the
analysis shows, that in the three thousand tons which
constitute the surface for the depth of one foot over an
acre, there is less than fifteen pounds of phosphoric acid.
As one two-hundred pound crop consumes nearly nine
pounds of phosphoric acid, it follows that, with no ma-
nure, the second crop, planted on the same soil, would
find a little more than half enough phosphorus for its
proper growth.

In the same soil, there was found less than twenty
pounds of potash, so that, as a two-hundred pound crop
consumes over nine pounds_of this chemical salt, the third
successive crop, without manure, would find little or no
potash to feed upon. The result of this chemical exami-
nation of the Sea Island soil is, that it must be kept up by
the use of manures rich in the phosphates, rich in potash,
and having a considerable amount of sulphuric acid. A
dressing, composed of rotten cotton seed, mixed with the
ordure of domestic animals, if used in sufficient quantities,
6*

130 COTTON CULTURE.

would meet this deficiency ; and of manures, not directly
the product of the soil, the best are Peruvian guano, bone
dust, dissolved in sulphuric acid, and the various refuse
of manufactories, rich in potash.

The Sea Island cotton is. planted from March twentieth
to April tenth, upon high beds, five feet apart one way,
by from eight to twenty-four inches the other, according
to the richness of the soil. It is cultivated in very much
the same manner as Upland, except that more reliance is
placed upon the hoe and less upon the plow. Much more
pains is taken in picking, ginning, and marketing the Sea
Island cotton, than with the ordinary Upland. In gath-
ering it from the field, great care is exercised to keep it
free of trash and all stains. It is transferred at once to
the drying scaffold, where it is sorted over before packing
away in the cotton house. The ginning is done almost
entirely in dry weather, when the cotton is again sunned
and picked over ; that which is picked Jate in the season,
or after a rain, is run through the trasher, which whips the
locks against pegs or bars, and frees them from sand and
loose dirt.

It then goes to the gins, where the seeds are separated
from the wool. It is somewhat remarkable that no prac-
tical improvement has yet been made upon the rude in-
vention which was used for this purpose almost a century
ago. Neither the Whitney gin, nor any of its modifica-
tions or improvements, are found to be effectual in sepa-
rating the lint of Sea Island cotton from the seed, without
cutting or tangling it. The form of this ginning instru-
ment is extremely simple, consisting of nothing more than
a treadle and a couple of small iron fly-wheels, for the
purpose of producing the rapid and steady revolution of
two wooden rollers, about a foot long, and about an inch
in diameter. These rollers wear out very rapidly, and are
renewed almost daily. It is probable that a pair of gutta

COTTON CULTURE. 131

peroha rollers, of about the size of those used in clothes
wringers, might be found effective and durable.

.V Mr. L. S. Chichester has produced a machine which
is said to be entirely successful in its operation on Sea
Island cotton. The lint passes between two rollers, one
fluted, made of polished steel, an inch and a quarter in
diameter ; the other of vulcanized rubber, twice as large,
while a plate of iron, vibrating in front of the rollers, rips
out the seeds as the cotton is drawn through. It is stated
that it cleans three hundred pounds a day without crush-
ing any of the seed.

The machine, in common use, is set in motion by the
foot of the operator acting upon the treadle, and the cot-
ton is fed between the rollers by hand, the lint passing
through, and the seeds being retained. The operation is
slow, as compared with the process of Whitney's gin.
Thirty or forty pounds a day is the extent that can be
ginned on one of these little machines, whereas a good
eighty-saw Whitney gin will, in the same time, turn off
thirty-two hundred pounds. "No other satisfactory mode
of propelling these gins has ever been discovered, though
much money and ingenuity have been employed in the
endeavor to apply horse and steam power to the operation
of ginning Sea Island cotton.

From the gins the cotton passes to the mote-table,
where a careful and experienced operative examines it
minutely, picking out every little mote and stained lock.
The operation can proceed as fast as two gins can supply
the material. From the mote-table it goes through the
hands of a general superintendent, and then to the packer.

This kind of cotton is seldom pressed in the ordinary
square bale, the purchasers preferring that packed by
hand. The operation of hand-packing, as it is called, is
performed by serving the open end of a strong bag over a
hoop, and suspending it through a hole in the floor. The
cotton is thrown into the bag, and the packer stands with

132 COTTOX CULTURE.

a wooden or iron pestle, and rams down each successive
layer or parcel of lint as it comes from the gin-room. The
bale of Sea Island cotton is fifty or a hundred pounds less
than the Upland bale.

This staple is never manufactured into the coarser mus-
lins, but is used for the most delicate fabrics, such as cot-
ton cambric and jaconet. It is extensively used in the
manufacture of the finest qualities of cotton thread, and
it is also consumed in large quantities by silk manufac-
turers, the fine, soft, and glossy fibre rendering it an
adulteration of the thread of the silk-worm difficult to be
detected.

The seed of the Sea Island cotton, which came origi-
nally from the Bahama Islands, and was known as the
Anguilla cotton, was first cultivated by Josiah Tatnall,
and Nicholas Turnbull, on Skidaway Island, near Savan-
nah, and subsequently on St. Simon's Island, at the mouth
of the Altamana, and on Jekyl Island.

The largest crop ever raised in this country was in
1827, when the amount produced was nearly fifty thous-
and bales. Of late years, that is, since 1850, the annual
production has been about thirty thousand bales annually.
The Sea Islands proper, Eclisto, Saint Simon's, Jekyl, Skid-
away, and others, that line the coast of South Carolina,
Georgia, and Eastern Florida, procluce the finest quality.
When the average price of " long staple " is fifty cents
per pound, the cotton from many plantations on these
islands will command sixty and seventy cents a pound.
That raised on the lower bottoms of the Santee is next in
value, while the Florida cottons are generally a little in-
ferior.

From 1830 to 1850, the average price of Sea Island was
a little less than twenty-five cents a pound. Since 1850 its
price has nearly doubled, the average for a number of
years being forty-five, forty-eight, and fifty cents.

COTTON CULTURE 133

CHAPTER Y.

HOW TO REALIZE THE MOST FROM A CROP ; SUGGESTIONS

AS TO THE UNION OF THE GROWING OF COTTON WITH

ITS MANUFACTURE INTO TARNS AND FABRICS.

The most that can be expected, or rationally proposed
for the South, in the present generation, is a manufactur-
ing system by which she may be able to produce the
greater part of the plainer and coarser fabrics necessary
for her consumption. It is practicable for the cotton-
growing communities to produce on the spot, and within
sight of the fields where the staple grows, their own Low-
ells and Osnaburgs, their own Linseys, and enough coarse
bagging-cloth to make neat and snug wrappings for that
part of the crop which is exported.

Instead of the present system, where every planter who
makes upwards of twenty bales considers it necessary to
have a gin, gin-house, cotton-sheds, and packing screw of
his own, let the planting communities unite in the erection
and equipment of a large neighborhood factory, with ar-
rangements and conveniences for manipulating the entire
crop raised within, say, six miles of the spot of its produc-
tion, and making the most of it in every sense of the
word. By estimating the present and prospective density
of the population, the amount of the coarser cotton fabrics
demanded for the yearly consumption of the community
can readily be estimated.

In many parts of the cotton States, a neighborhood, or
community, living within about five miles of a common
centre, produces, in a favorable year, five thousand bales
of cotton. The number of persons of all ages and both.
sexes, in such a community, is about fifteen hundred. I
speak now of a strictly agricultural township where cotton
growing is the business, everything else being subordinate
and auxiliary to this principal occupation. The average

134 COTTON CULTURE.

of the number of bales ginned and pressed at each gin-
house, is not over two hundred, and in a great many
neighborhoods much less than that; and the average cost
of these establishments for ginning and baling the crop
may be put at five thousand dollars, many steam-gins
costing twenty and thirty thousand, and, on the other
hand, many old-fashioned gin-sheds and old style wooden
screws not being worth more than five hundred dollars.
But, taking five thousand as a reasonable average, there
is, in such a community, a hundred and twenty-five thous-
and dollars laid out in appliances for ginning and baling.

Now, the plan here proposed is that, instead of having
this hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars distributed
over so large an area and invested in gins and the ma-
chinery that accompanies them, let the neighborhood unite
in putting up a factory that will gin out this whole crop,
bale up in a small compact manner, with excellent bagging
and strong varnished hoops, over four-fifths of the crop
raised, and which shall also have arrangements for spin-
ning and weaving sixty thousand yards of Lowells, Osna-
burgs, and strong muslins, annually, and twenty thousand
yards of Linseys.

The number of spindles and looms necessary to produce
these eighty thousand yards of cloth can easily be esti-
mated, and procured without difficulty. The number
should be no more than sufficient to produce this amount
of cloth in the course of a year. If a larger number were
put up, the building might need to be much stronger and
higher than would otherwise be required, and there would
be no certainty that the extra looms and spindles might
not stand idle for a considerable part of the time.

The subjoined drawing is a ground plan of a cotton
factory of this description, designed for the accommoda-
tion of a community that produces five thousand bales
annually.

COTTON CULTURE.

135

W W W TF, represents a substantial wall, or fence,
that surrounds the factory. It is two hundred feet each
way. JET, H^ are gate-ways. The enclosures, marked a,
a, a, are cotton-sheds, or cribs, of sizes varying according

W D D

1

1

11

K

K

K „

1

e 1

& 1

|i

K

1

E K

1

i1

i

1

i

1

PAC.KING
SCREW. '

PRESS

rvT-r-T «""]

Fig. 20. — PLAN OF COTTON FACTORY AND INCLOSUKB.

to the number of bales which the different planters in the
vicinage commonly produce. These sheds, or cribs, are
substantially covered, the roofs extending each way from
the ridge-pole over the walls, which are open, of lattice
work, for the free admission of air. The marks, m m m
m, in the fence, or wall, are small openings, say 4 ft. x 4
ft., for the purpose of unloading the wagons without driv-
ing into the yard. S is a large, well built, scaffold, slop-
ing toward the south, upon which the cotton, when taken
from the sheds, is spread, to be thoroughly sunned before
being ginned. A and A represent two endless aprons, or

136 COTTOX CULTUEE.

feeders, which move slowly from the platform or scaffold
to a receptacle above the gin-stands, from which the cot-
ton is fed to the gins. 6r represents the ginning-room,
where four or five gin-stands are placed side by side, pro-
pelled by an engine that is located directly underneath.
C represents a small apron which conveys the cotton seed
from beneath the gin-stands to 0, an oil-mill, in immedi-
ate connection with the spinning, weaving, and ginning-
mill, where are all the necessary appliances for extract-
ing the oil from the seeds, pressing, clarifying, and barrel-
ing it. Immediately in the rear of 6r, the gin-room, is L,
the lint-room, into which the cotton passes directly from
the gins. Underneath the lint-room is a powerful press
and packing-box, capable of compressing four hundred
pounds of lint cotton into a space a little larger than
twenty-seven cubic feet, or a cubic yard.

A press, capable of doing this, was patented in 1860,
by P. G. Gardner, and is more fully described in the first
part of this Treatise. It is twelve feet in hight, very
strongly made, very hard to break or put out of order.
It can be worked by hand, horse, or steam power, according
as rapidity and economy of human strength is desired,
and will compress four hundred pounds of cotton within
the space of a cubic yard.

Of course, bales made in such a press and well bound
with iron hoops would require no further compression at
shipping ports, and might be carried from the remotest
plantations to Boston, or to Liverpool, without losing half
a pound in waste.

D and D are large double doors on rollers, at the rear,
where the floor is on a level with the top of a wagon bed,
so that the bales, or the manufactured cloths, can be
loaded with the greatest ease at one door, and the barrels
of cotton seed oil at the other. The openings, KK KK,
are windows.

The first story or basement of the part marked B and

COTTON CULTURE. 137

E, is occupied by the engine, whicli is tinder the gin-room,
and by the packing screw ; and the rear portion, with
bales ready for market. F F are the boiler and smoke
stack. Directly above it, the second story commences at
the front with the ginning-room, back of which is the lint-
room, and in the rear of that the carding and spinning-
room. The third story is devoted to weaving, and also
to the carding and spinning of a small amount of wool,
sufficient to make twenty thousand yards of linsey-wool-
sey in the course of the year, enough to supply the neigh-
borhood with all the plain woolen clothing they require.
In the attic, or fourth story, there are arrangements for
spinning and weaving into coarse bagging all the very
much stained and inferior cotton which is brought to the
factory.

With cotton at its present prices, (1867), considerably
over twenty-five cents a pound, this would not be advisa-
ble ; but eventually, when cotton falls, as it may, to about
ten cents a pound, and the lowest grades to six and seven
cents, it would be true policy for each neighborhood to
make its own bagging. The article thus manufactured
from the refuse and trash would be much closer and
stronger than the ordinary Kentucky hemp Bagging in
use, and beside, the superior protection afforded to the
bales would be valuable for various purposes after it had
reached the end of its journey and been stripped from
the package.

There is space in the gin-room for four large gins of
eighty saws each, which, running steadily, would turn off"
forty bales per day, and thus the entire crop of the neigh-
borhood or township, amounting to five thousand bales,
could be ginned out, packed, hooped, riveted, and branded,
between the first of September, when the gins begin to
run on the new crop, and the first of January.

What now are the advantages of a system like the one
here proposed ? In the first place, the planter needs no

138 COTTON CULTURE.

gin or gin-house, and only very cheap cotton-sheds for the
temporary storing of a part of his crop, it being hauled
and stored in his shed at the factory, of which he himself,
if he chooses, can carry the key. In doing so large an
amount of ginning, it would, of course, be expected that
the machines would be of the best construction, and the
operator, a person skilled in cotton and in machinery, so
that the ginning would be done in the very best manner,
the lint thoroughly removed from the seed, and not torn,
or cut, or matted, or tangled by the improper action of
the saws.

The appliances for packing and compression are also of
the very best sort, the press being made principally of
iron, and worked by steam power, making the bales very
nearly, if not precisely, cubical in form, and varying not
five pounds either way from four hundred each. They
would be banded with substantial iron hoops, an inch or
more wide, and prepared by being varnished, while hot,
with coal tar. In the engine house, close by, is a black-
smith's forge, where the rivets are easily made and insert-
ed while hot, battered down, or clenched in the most
thorough manner. It would be expected also that the
cotton would be sorted or graded while passing through the
gin, which is, by far, the best time for doing it ; and, as
the planter's name or initials are branded upon the bale,
the quality or grade could be put on at the same time.
Honesty and thoroughness in this would soon work a most
desirable change in the whole system of cotton marketing,
There need be no sampling done, but the cotton ought to
be sold according to the brand found upon it, so that the
package would be entirely unbroken and undisturbed from
the moment it was riveted in the gin-house, to the time
the hoops are cut off in the distant cotton mill. The
enormous and exorbitant charges which are made upon
the crop at the various shipping ports, for drayage,
storage, compression, re-packing, and insurances, would,

COTTON CULTUEE. 139

in this manner, be very much reduced, if not quite
abolished.

After the principal part of the crop has been thus per-
fectly prepared for the market and shipped, it is proposed
to throw the power of the engine for the remainder of the
year upon the machinery in the second and third stories.
During the months of January, February, March, and
April, the spindles and looms are to be kept running upon
the sixty thousand yards of Lowells and Osnaburgs,
which are required for neighborhood consumption.

During the latter part of the summer, the machinery is
employed in making up twenty thousand yards of Linseys,
which are required for the winter wear of the population
represented in such a factory ; and, as before stated, the
worst of the cotton, say fifty bales in all, could be, during
the same time, spun and woven into bagging.

It is not to be supposed, that the above plan of having
for every planting neighborhood, a ginning establishment
capable of preparing nine-tenths of the crop for market
in the most thorough manner, manufacturing the remain-
ing tenth into all the cotton and linsey clothing required
by such a community, and converting two-thirds of the
seed into oil, will be found practicable, or even desirable,
everywhere. In some regions, there would arise a diffi-
culty as to fuel. In others, water power would be found
cheapest, and in that case it might be best to enlarge the
working capacity of the factory, and send many thousand
yards of sheetings, muslins, and calicoes, annually to mar-
ket. In others, the prime objection would be, that a good
gin-house is now standing on every plantation, and there
would be no economy in hauling the cotton in the seed
five miles, when the facilities for ginning it at home are
equally good. But with regard to those parts where
the gin-houses have been destroyed in the late war, or
where they are old and ill arranged ; or in freshly opened

140 COTTON CULTURE.

sections, where the better plan can be adopted at the first,
some such arrangement is earnestly recommended.

The plan of acting by association in the ginning
and manufacture of plain fabrics from the crop of each
neighborhood, will be found especially suited to the small
producer, the farmer, who, by his own labor and that of
liis children, plants and harvests ten or fifteen bales of
cotton each year. It enables him to enter upon the busi-
ness of cotton growing with as small an outlay as will
enable him to engage in the cultivation of potatoes, or
onions, or hops. He needs no gin or gin-house, nothing
but a yoke of oxen with which to haul his seed cotton to
the factory, where one bale will make cloth enough for his
family for a year, and the balance will be ginned, classed,
packed, pressed and covered, hooped and branded, with as
much care and thoroughness as the five hundred bales of
his opulent neighbor, and thus goes to market in a much
better condition and with greater probabilities of com-
manding a just price.

The only difficulty to be overcome in order to the es-
tablishment of an effective and adequate system of manu-
factures for the South, is that of population. Operatives
are wanting, and not only so, the class from ichich opera-
tives are produced. The inhabitants of the cotton States
prefer agriculture to any other pursuit; and while the
population is so sparse that in most neighborhoods there
are thirty acres of land to every person, no considerable
number of the original stock will be, by any social neces-
sity, driven from the soil into the mills.

For this reason, nothing but a large immigration of
people, not wedded to the culture of the soil, will enable
the South to do more than manufacture her own cloths.
The outlay and the enterprise to enable her to do this,
are so moderate, that the immense advantages to be se-
cured by such a course must be forced upon the attention

COTTOX CULTURE. 141

of all those of her citizens who are guided by a wise and
enlightened self-interest.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE VALUE OF COTTON AS A PLANT, AND THE
USES TO WHICH IT MAT BE APPLIED.

The peculiarity of cotton is that it alone, of all products
• of the vegetable kingdom, meets a grand and universal
demand of the race. Flax is the only other plant culti-
vated to any extent for the purpose of making fabrics
from its tissue. But in any but a torrid zone, linen is un-
suitable as an article for general wearing apparel.

The products of the sheep and of the silk-worm are, in
some respects, superior, but they are also more costly.
Nothing begins to compete with cotton as a material of
dress in the union of the three important qualities of com-
fort, durability, and cheapness.

When, as in 1848, the average price of Upland cotton
was six cents, or in 1852, when it was eight cents per
pound, it is hardly possible to conceive of a cheaper dress
than could then be made of cotton. Seventy-five cents,
expended in plain Lowell, would clothe a laboring person
in neat, whole garments, from April to October. There
is no probability that it will ever fall to those figures
again. It must, from the nature of things, and in any
way in which the expenses can be calculated, cost from
ten to twelve cents a pound to grow cotton by any other
than compulsory, that is to say, unpaid labor. If, from
the extensive growth of cotton in India, Egypt, and Brazil,
the price of Upland Americans should fall below ten cents,
general failure must overtake our cotton interests. While
it ranges from ten to fifteen, prudent and economical

142 COTTON CULTURE.

planters, in favorable seasons, may make more than a
living.

When its price is above fifteen cents, and from that to
thirty^skill and good fortune, with a reliable system of
labor, must enable the cotton grower in the best parts of
the cotton belt to grow rich.

The probabilities are, that, as the tumults and disorders
incident to the great civil war abate, the price of cotton
will slowly decline to about fifteen cents, where it must
remain, in order to be a profitable crop when raised by
free labor.

On this basis, the price of a yard of ordinary shirting
or sheeting will be from eighteen to twenty cents, accord-
ing to fineness, and a fair calico or print can be afforded
for about sixteen cents. But, at these prices, below which
there is no likelihood that cotton fabrics can fall, no mate-
rial can at all compete with this as the universal dress.
As in food, the poor man buys the largest amount of
palatable nourishment when he expends it in corn meal at
three cents a pound, so, when he buys the material for a
plain shirt for fifty cents, there is no way of expending
half a dollar by which he can buy so much of comfort,
durability and neatness, as in buying three yards of un-
bleached domestic.

At that rate, and in summer time, the laborer can be
decently covered by expending two dollars in cotton cloth.

The enormous demand for cheap cloth for the million
has been so steady, ever since the gin and the jenny were
invented, that only a small amount of the great staple has
ever been diverted to the production of other articles use-
ful in the domestic arts and comforts. Cotton has been
called "vegetable wool," and on many accounts it answers
admirably to that description. It stands half way, as it
were, between the animal and vegetable kingdom, having
some of the characteristic advantages of each. Fine, soft,
and glossy, it reminds one of silk in the delicacy of its

COTTON CULTURE. 143

feel, and can be blended with silk in composing fabrics
that appear little inferior to those made exclusively from
the thread of cocoons. When matted together, it pro-
duces a wad or padding, only a little inferior to wool, in
warmth and elasticity. A firm and lasting vegetable fibre,
it is capable, like hemp and Manilla grass, of being
wrought into cords and ropes which, for evenness, pliabil-
ity and strength, are equal to anything made of those
materials.

As a material for beds, let us compare it with the arti-
cles in general use, and learn, first its qualities, and then
its relative cheapness.

When made into mattresses, the objection, and the only
objection urged against it is, that it is liable to wad, or
bunch up, and thus present an uneven, and hence an un-
pleasant surface to the sleeper.

Ordinary cotton, as it comes from the gin, is liable to
this difficulty. But if the fibre is combed out in long
rolls, as in the cotton batting extensively used for cover-
lids, and laid in crosswise, one layer crossing the other at
right angles, until the required thickness is attained, and
the mattress well tacked or stitched together, so as to hold
the contents just where it was laid, no such difficulty
arises, and the mattress thus made is equal to wool in
softness. It is a little less elastic, but as an ofiset, this cot-
ton being vegetable, is perfectly sweet and wholesome, free
from all animal odors, not liable to become infested with
moths and other vermin, and acquires no unpleasant or
musty smell, as many other substances do that are used
for beds, and especially feathers.

Thirty pounds will make a good-sized double mattress.
At ten cents per pound, which is about the cost of raising
cotton by free labor, the filling for a cotton mattress costs
three dollars ; the cover about two and a half; the mak-
ing-up a dollar. Thus, for six and a half dollars, the cot-
ton grower can supply himself with a bed, equal in dura-

144 COTTON CULTURE.

bility, sweetness, and warmth, to wool or hair, and only a
little inferior in elasticity. But the chief advantage of
cotton for mattresses is in the fact that so much less ma-
terial will suffice to give the same degree of softness, as
compared with other materials. A thin cotton mattress
for a single bed, or for a steamboat berth, is made to con-
tain about ten pounds of cotton. This gives a soft, agree-
able couch, easily removed for airing, and one-third cheaper
than any other suitable material.

As a material for bed covers its use is so extensive that
little need be said by way of recommendation. For
warmth and -lightness combined, nothing is superior, ex-
cept very soft double-rose blankets, which are a luxury
that only the rich can indulge in. Four pounds of cotton
batting, costing say twenty-five cents a pound, stitched
between sheets of worn calico, need cost but little more
than a dollar, and the amount of comfort thus obtained
could be found in heavy woolen blankets only at an out-
lay of from fifteen to twenty dollars.

Cotton can easily be made into blankets which, for soft-
ness and comfort, are only surpassed by the finest of
wool. Though not so warm as the heavy rose or Macki-
naw blanket, they are sufficiently comfortable for the cold-
est nights in the cotton region, where the thermometer re-
mains but a few nights in the year below 32°, and much
of the time in winter stands above 40° for weeks together.

With a little ingenuity and skill, cotton can thus be
made, to a family in moderate circumstances in the South-
ern States of our country, as great and universal a bless-
ing as the Bamboo or the Bread-fruit is to the native of
the tropics.

All that is required are facilities for developing all its
useful qualities, and applying them to the production of
the greatest amount of comfort.

Let us, for example, take a family living on the borders
of the cotton belt in Tennessee or Western Texas, and on

COTTON CULTURE. 145

the supposition that a cotton mill, such as is described in the
foregoing chapter, is within ten miles, what can they do
for themselves in one year by raising as much cotton as
can be used in the family ? We will also suppose that the
family is poor, having been desolated by war, or having
recently arrived in the country, and in want of many of
the ordinary comforts.

They will get in their crop in April, and tend it during
the spring and summer.

Early in September they begin to pick, and by the first
of October have between three and four thousand pounds
of cotton in the seed. At the factory, this will yield about
a thousand pounds of cotton-wool, and a hundred and
twenty bushels of cotton seed. Two hundred pounds of
it, spun and woven into sheetings and Lowells, will give a
family of ten an abundance of cloth for dress of every
description, bed coverlids, bed ticking, table-cloths, nap-
kins, towels, warp for rag carpets, and yarn for knitting
into socks. Two hundred pounds, in the form of batting,
will afford material for making five warm, ample, cotton
beds, and five thick, downy coverlids to cover them. If
sixty or seventy pounds of wool are bought, raised, or ex-
changed for cotton, it will give material for half a dozen
warm blankets, half wool and half cotton ; also a hundred
yards of Linsey, for the winter wear of the whole family.
A few pounds of the inferior or stained cotton can be
twisted into cords and ropes for beds, plow lines, and for
binding the bales of a future crop. The hundred and
twenty bushels of seed could be sent to an oil-mill and sold.

In this calculation, it has been presumed that ten or
twelve more bales will be raised and picked out, hauled
to the mill for ginning and marketing in the usual way,
which, at present prices, and after making all necessary
discounts for ginning, bagging, hauling to market, and
commissions and taxes, ought to bring the family some
twelve hundred dollars in cash.
7

146 COTTON CULTURE.

Thus, with no more industry or tact than is displayed
in ten thousands of American families, the labors of a sin-
gle season may be made to furnish ten persons, not more
than three of whom are adults, an abundance of plain but
warm clothing, a generous equipment of beds and bed-
ding, a full supply of yarn, cordage, and ropes, oil enough
for two years, and more than a thousand dollars in cash ;
beside a full crop of corn, potatoes, oats, wheat, and the
usual garden vegetables. Surely there is no other crop
cultivated from which such various and such ample returns
can be expected, and no part of the world that affords
such attractions to the industrious poor, as the higher and
healthier portions of the cotton belt of North America.
All that is required to make those regions the most desir-
able on the continent, is established and orderly society,
with such a development of manufacturing skill as will en-
able the cotton grower to realize from this admirable
plant all that its Creator has designed for the material
comfort of man and his social advancement.

Some years ago, when cotton often brought its producer
only six or seven cents a pound, considerable interest was
felt in a discovery by which this abundant staple was to
be employed as a building material. Some chemist dis-
covered a petrifying compound, similar to Roman cement,
the effect of which was to convert a mass of cotton upon
which it was poured into a substance having the hardness
without the brittleness of stone. He proposed to build
the walls of houses by piling the cotton between planks
at the requisite distance asunder, and pouring the cement
upon the mass. But the importance of this discovery,
however surprising, was soon neutralized by the increased
price of cotton; and with the demand that now exists,
and will continue to be felt for many years, there is no
likelihood that it will come into active competition with
brick and mortar as a building material.

Some ten years ago, a Louisiana Frenchman, named

COTTON CULTURE. 147

Loiiis Blanc, conducted a series of experiments with the
view of utilizing the fibrous bark of the cotton plant, and
making- of it a substitute for hemp. He arrived at some
very satisfactory conclusions, and the result of his investi-
gations may be stated as follows. If the cotton plant is
taken at full maturity before damaged by frost, cut down,
its lateral branches broken or cut away, and the main stem
buried under a shallow furrow for ten days or two weeks,
the woody fibre becomes so decayed that it may be treated
like hemp, and the fibrous bark thus disengaged makes
good bagging and cordage.

It has the color of the gunny or East India bagging,
and is spun like the Kentucky heinp, either by machinery,
or by hand.

The best way of producing it is by sowing the cotton
seed broadcast. The plant, thus grown, runs up slender
and puts out but few lateral branches, thus approximating
in appearance to hemp. Whether the slender or the
branching plant is taken, the use of it for this purpose
cannot be connected with the production of cotton staple
in the usual way. That is to say, a plant will not yield
its full crop of bolls, and then give good hemp from the
stalk.

But it will often occur that from a premature frost, or
the ravages of the caterpillar, a field of cotton is stripped
of its foliage, while the stalk is still green and full of life.
In cases like this, a disappointed planter may find his pros-
pects much less gloomy, if he can, at once, cut down his
stalks and produce from the bark almost as many bales of
cotton stalk hemp as he would have harvested of lint from
the bolls, if his crop had matured.

The fibre thus obtained has been used by some manu-
facturers as a substitute for rags in making paper, and is
found to answer an excellent purpose. In some soils, as
for instance that of the lower Mississippi bottom, cotton
tends to rankness of growth rather than productiveness,

148 COTTON CULTURE.

and it may be found that more could be realized by rais-
ing the plant for its hemp, than by cultivating it exclu-
sively for its lint.

But this use of the plant is to be developed by future
industry and experiments. As yet, no planters have en-
gaged in its culture for the purpose to such an extent, or
with a skill and system that enables us to form any relia-
ble opinion as to the practical importance of this discov-
ery, for which Mr. Blanc has taken out a patent. The
price of cotton-wool must decline considerably below the
price it now holds, and is likely to keep for some years,
before the attention of cotton growers will be drawn from
the boll to the stalk ; unless Mr. B., or some other invent-
or, shall discover some way of making the stalk useful
after it has ceased to produce bolls, and all the open cotton
has been picked.

If facilities for converting the seed into oil are want-
ing, let it be used as manure. In this form, it is worth
at least twenty-five cents a bushel, and it is better
policy, as a rule, to feed it liberally to the corn, and then
feed the corn to the stock. Seventy-five or a hundred
bushels, applied to an acre of corn, will about double the
yield. If it would give fifteen bushels without the cotton
seed, it will yield thirty with this dressing. Nor does its
effect cease with the first crop grown by its aid. Corn
land, thus fertilized, if planted the next year in cotton,
yields a third more, and its effect has been found to last
for five years after it was applied.

In a previous chapter, where the analysis of cotton-wool
and cotton seed are given, it appears that the latter is es-
pecially rich in potash, in lime, and phosphorus, the three
grand elements of fertility. As a special and lasting ma-
nure, cotton seed is surpassed only by bone-dust, super-
phosphate of lime, and Peruvian guano.

Finally, as closing this recital of the virtues and uses
of the cotton plant, it may be added that Southern phy-

COTTON CULTURE. 149

sicians have found the tea of its root, or a decoction of it,
reduced to a syrup, a valuable antiperiodic. It counter-
acts in the system the poison of those rich bottoms and
wide alluvial savannahs where the plant flourishes and at-
tains its greatest perfection.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF COTTON; ITS HISTORY
AND STATISTICS.

As a power in the world, as a prominent feature and
main element of civilization, cotton is a child of the nine-
teenth century. When men who are now old were chil-
dren, cotton and goods made from it were spoken of
something as we now speak of Japanese porcelain, or
mantles from Afghanistan, as of articles rare and foreign.

In this country, a little was raised by almost every
thrifty farmer for domestic consumption. The seeds were
separated from the lint by hand, at the rate of about a
pound in a day, and the staple was spun and mainly used
for knitting into stockings.

There are neither in Homer, the Hebrew Scriptures, or
other early writings, any allusions to garments made of
cotton. The skill of the early nations in the manufacture
of fine linen and in the weaving of wool is so frequently
alluded to, that if there had been any such thing as cotton
cloth known in the times of Homer and Solomon, there
must have been reference to them. Some four hundred
and fifty years before Christ, Herodotus, in whose writings
almost everything that was known in the ancient world is
described, refers to cotton very distinctly, and describes it
as a wool-bearing tree in India, " which has for its fruit,"

150 COTTON CULTURE.

he says, " fleeces more delicate and beautiful than those
of sheep."

Two of the generals of Alexander, when they returned
from the far East, brought back the first detailed accounts
of the cotton tree, its product, and the extraordinary fab-
rics woven from it.

By degrees, cotton cloth from India was gradually in-
troduced to the polite nations of the old world, and just
before the commencement of the Christian era, the Romans
seem to have imported quite large amounts of it, so much
so that Verres, a cotemporary of Cicero, made awnings
of it when he was in Sicily. Sixty-three years before
Christ, Livy records that Lentulus covered the Roman
forum with a cotton awning ; and thirty or forty years
after, Ca3sar extended a cotton awning all over the Via
Sacra, from his own private residence to the Capitoline Hill,
a display of gorgeous magnificence and imperial profusion
which seemed, at the time, to the Romans, more dazzling
than his exhibitions in the forum.

Many of these Hindoo cotton fabrics were very extra-
ordinary when considered as the product of the rude
looms in which they were woven. They have been excel-
led in delicacy and perfection only by employing the most
consummate mechanism of modern skill. The Indian
spins the cotton yarn with his fingers and distaff alone,
and by long practise and wonderful patience, he acquires
the art of drawing out, incorporating and twisting the
fibres into a thread, almost absolutely uniform in size, and
hardly larger than the filament of a spider. The only ma-
chine he uses in weaving is a rude loom, which he carries
about with him, setting it up under a tree, to the branch
of which he attaches the balances. He digs a little pit in
the ground where a part of the gear is arranged ; he sits
upon the edge of the pit, thrusts his feet into it, and at-
taches the cords of the treadle to loops that go around the
great toes. By arrangements so rude and primitive as

COTTON CULTURE. 151

these, from which we should hardly expect a fair article
of gunny bagging, he makes those fine muslins which the
Greeks called " Gangetekoi," or Ganges goods, some of
which were plain, some ornamental, and some dyed with
exquisite colors.

Tavernier, a French traveler, speaks of some muslins
and calicoes which he saw at Surat, "so fine that you
could hardly feel them in your hand ; and the thread, when
span, is scarcely discernible."

The late Rev. William Ward, Missionary at Serampore,
speaks of muslins made in Bengal, so fine, that a piece re-
quires four months to make it, and is worth five hundred
rupees ; this fabric, when spread upon grass and moistened
with de\v, is so extremely thin as to be imperceptible
without careful examination. A single pound of this
thread was spun out to the length of a hundred and fifteen
miles, and it is only of late that this hand spinning of
Hindostan has been surpassed by English machines, which
produced, for the Great Exhibition of 1851 thread so fine
that a pound of it would reach over a thousand miles.

There is a small district forty miles long and about three
broad, lying northeast of Calcutta, which produces a sta-
ple of great fineness, but too short to be spun by Euro-
peans, or woven by any machinery. From this cotton is
manufactured, in the rude way above described, the famous
Decca muslins, sometimes called webs of woven wind.
On account of the wonderful fineness of these Indian fab-
rics, it was supposed that a very superior quality, and per-
haps large amounts of cotton, might be grown in India,
and thus a source opened to the English spinner from
which he could supply himself, and feel a dependence less
absolute upon American cotton. The experiment was a
very faithful one. Several southern gentlemen, and five
or six experienced overseers, men practically familiar with
every detail of cotton growing, went out to India, taking
with them a large assortment of improved seed, the best

152 COTTOX CULTURE.

of gins, models for gin-houses, and the necessary imple-
ments for cultivating the crop. They remained there
some six years. Their experiments were constantly di-
rected to overcoming the various difficulties which they
found in the way of raising large crops. They came away
entirely satisfied that neither the soil nor the climate of
India fits it to be a producer of any considerable amount
of the higher grades of cotton. The unvarying division
of its seasons into wet and dry, and the quick transition
from one to the other, are ill adapted to cotton, which, for
its successful growth, requires a wet and warm spring,
allowing the young plants to become well started and
firmly set in the soil ; then a long hot summer with bright
days and dewy nights, and occasional showers, (but no vio-
lent storms,) to mature the bolls, and a long, dry autumn,
giving full time for gathering the crop.

In Egypt, where the culture of cotton was introduced
about the year 1821, the climate and soil are both favor-
able, and the quality of Egyptian cotton compares very
well with that of America ; but the quantity, owing to
the dependence of all agricultural operations on the inun-
dation of the Nile, is very uncertain, the fluctuations •be-
ing extreme and beyond calculation.

The shores of Western Africa, and Yoruba, in the in-
terior, produce cotton in large quantities, but the staple is
too coarse and short for the manufacture of the finer fab-
rics. The distinguished traveler, Dr. Livingstone, has re-
cently furnished much information as to the capacity of
this region for the growth of cotton. He returned to
Africa in the spring of 1858, prepared to prosecute the
culture of the crop. Since the year 1852, Mr. Thomas
Clegg has been engaged in the region of Sierra Leone,
and, being provided with gins and other apparatus, so far
succeeded, that in 1858, the total amount sent to Eng-
land from that part of the world was nearly a hundred
thousand pounds. In quality, the African cotton is decid-

COTTOX CULTURE. 153

edly superior to that from East India, and in fineness and
length of staple ranks next to American cotton.

In the Xew World, the manufacture of cotton cloth ap-
pears to have been well understood by the Mexicans aud
Peruvians long before the advent of Cortez and Pizarro
to these shores. Columbus found the cotton plant grow-
ing wild in Hispaniola, and the explorers that followed
him recognized it as far north as the country bordering
on the Mississippi River.

Coptez, when he set out from Trinidad, on the southern
coast of Cuba, on his Mexican expedition, used cotton for
padding or quilting the jackets of his soldiers as a protec-
tion against Indian arrows. He learned this from the
natives, by whom it had been long used for that purpose.
Arrived on the Mexican coast, among the gorgeous pres-
ents sent him by the confiding Montezuma were " cur-
tains, coverlids, and robes of cotton, fine as silk, of rich
and various dyes, interwoven with feather work, that riv-
aled the delicacy of painting." The Mexicans also under-
stood the manufacture of white cotton cloths, and even
possessed the art of converting them into a species of pa-
per. In the latter part of the last century, the West In-
dies shipped to England something like forty thousand
.bales, which was, at that time, nearly three-fourths of the
cotton supply. It was mostly long staple cotton, of fine
quality and, considering the climate and the soil of those
islands, there is every reason to believe that cotton culture
will revive and take the place of sugar, which supplanted
it fifty or sixty years ago.

The culture of cotton in Brazil commenced in the early
part of the present century, and increased so rapidly,
that for a number of years, Brazil exceeded every other
country, except the United States, in the amount of cot-
ton it produced. In many places on the coast, the climate
was found adapted to the growth of long staple cotton.
But, of late, the plantations have retired toward the in-

154 COTTON CULTTJEE.

terior, and the amount produced throughout the kingdom
increases but slowly. During the ten years, from 1843 to
1853, the increase was only six thousand bales, and the
product of the latter year was sixty-five thousand bales.
Four-fifths of the Brazilian crop is exported to Great
Britain. The first production of cotton in that country
was almost simultaneous with the first raised in the United
States. Its export to England began in 1781, and it was
1784, three years after, that eight bags of cotton, shipped
from the United States to England, were seized on the
ground that so much cotton could not be produced in the
United States.

The growth of cotton in Brazil is not likely for many
years, and perhaps never, to attain any great importance.
Along the coast the climate is unfavorable, and the rav-
ages of insects are such as to make the cotton crop very
uncertain. In the interior provinces, the difficulties of
raising it are not so great ; but the sparseness of the popu-
lation and the slowness and the almost insuperable obstacles
in the way of transportation of what is produced, must
limit the amount grown.

Pernambuco is the principal cotton growing province
of Brazil ; but between the years 1828 and 1845, the ex-
ports from Pernambuco declined to such an extent as to
make a poor showing for cotton in Brazil. In 1828, there
were exported a little over seventy thousand bales of one
hundred and sixty pounds each ; in 1845, seven years
after, the export was a little over twenty-six thousand
bales of one hundred and sixty pounds each.

There is no authentic statement as to the precise time
when cotton was cultivated in the British Colonies of
North America, now the United States. It is probable
that, from the settlement of the country, a little was raised
in most of the southern colonies. In a pamphlet on the
attractions of North America, published very early in
1600, a year or two after Jamestown was settled, it is

COTTON CULTURE. 155

stated that cotton would grow as well in Virginia as in
Italy ; and in the very last part of that century, another
authority states that Sir Edmund Andros, while Governor
of Virginia, in 1692, " gave particular marks of his favor
towards the propagation of cotton, which, since his time,
has been much neglected." tip to the time of the Revo-
lutionary War, so little was raised that it deserves no
mention as one of the American exports. Within ten
years from the Declaration of Peace between the United
States and England, cotton culture received an amazing
impetus from the discovery, by Eli Whitney, of a rapid
and effectual mode of separating Upland cotton from
its seed. The manner in which the attention of young
Whitney was drawn to the invention of the cotton-gin is
a matter of so great interest that the folio wing brief
statement is copied from the memoir of Eli Whitney, writ-
ten by Professor Olmstead, of Yale College :

" After leaving college, Mr. Whitney, who had already
distinguished himself for his mechanical skill, and for bold
and self-relying enterprise, almost immediately went to
the State of Georgia for the purpose of fulfilling his en-
gagement with a gentleman to reside in his family as a
private teacher." This was in the latter part of the year
1792. On his way to Savannah by ship, he had as a com-
panion of his voyage, the widow of the then late General
Greene, 'so distinguished in the annals of our revolutionary
history. On his arrival at Savannah, being but partially
recovered from the small pox, which he had by inoculation,
lie was invited by Mrs. Greene to spend a little time at her
residence at Mulberry Grove, near that city. He soon
learned that another teacher had been employed in the
place which he had expected. Mrs. Greene at once kindly
and generously proposed to him to commence the study
of the law under her hospitable roof, and to remain in her
family as long as he should choose. He had not been
long with her before he gave striking proofs of his mechan-

156 COTTON CULTURE.

ical ingenuity, which attracted the attention of Mrs. G.,
and led her to feel that Whitney could meet any exigency
in which invention and skill of this kind were required.
Not long after, Mrs. Greene was visited by several gentle-
men from upper Georgia, principally officers, who had
served with her husband in the war. Of these were Maj ors
Brewer, Forsythe, and Pendleton. They conversed
largely upon the situation and prospects of agriculture in
the opening upper country of the South, and expressed
regret that no means had been devised to clear the Upland
cotton from the seed, saying, that unless such a point could
be obtained, it was vain to raise cotton for the market.
Mrs. Greene interrupted their conversation, by saying,
" Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney ; he
can make anything." After showing them, as the results
of his ingenuity, the various mechanical contrivances
which he had devised and executed, she introduced him to
the circle, who at once made known the object to be ac-
complished, and the difficulties which were in the way.
Whitney, in reply, disclaimed any superiority of mechan-
ical genius, and added that he had never in his life seen
either cotton or cotton seed. Mrs. Greene then said : " I
have accomplished my aim. Mr. Whitney is a very de-
serving young man, and to bring him into notice was my
object. The interest which our friends now feel for him
will, I hope, lead to his getting some employment to ena-
ble him to prosecute the study of the law."

The hint given to Whitney by these gentlemen was not
lost upon him. The season for cotton in the seed was
passed, but Whitney went to Savannah at once, and after
a long search, at last lighted upon a small quantity ; with
this he returned to his temporary home and communicated
liis intentions to Mr. Miller, who was then a teacher in the
family and afterwards married Mrs. Greene. A room was
assigned to him to which Mr. Miller and Mrs. Greene
were the only persons who were admitted, or who knew

t~\

COTTON CULTURE. -\ f *157 j

anything of his project. His mat$riafe/aiid tools'* ^e^-e
both limited; even the wire which nV^cpira^pjild no/'j^
be found at Savannah, and he was forceci^feo draw^tf/qr

* i • *

himself. Near the close of the winter the machine was- ab/ .
nearly completed as to leave no doubt of its success. ^«
Mrs. Greene was naturally eager to communicate to her
friends the fact of an invention which promised at once a
great staple, precisely adapted to their soil, occupation for
their hands, and immense wealth, as the result of an ex-
tended culture of an article which had been thought of
little worth. She invited to her house gentlemen of
distinction from different parts of the State, and conducted
her assembled guests to the room in which they saw with
astonishment a machine which promised such splendid re-
sults for all their interest.

The petition for a patent was presented to Mr. Jeffer-
son, the Secretary of State, June 20, 1793. Mr. Jefferson
at once took a strong interest in the invention and its
originator, and assured Mr. Whitney that his request
should be granted as soon as the model was lodged at the
Patent Office. In consequence of unavoidable delays,
however, the patent was not secured in form until several
moiiths afterwards.

Like many other inventors, Mr. Whitney was destined
to wade through a series of tedious and vexatious litiga-
tions before he realized anything like an adequate personal
return for his ingenuity and skill. But the effect of his
invention was immediately seen in the extraordinary in-
crease in the cultivation of Green Seed or Upland cotton.
Within fourteen years of the time when he first made the
discovery, the importance of the invention and its effect'
upon Southern agriculture and prosperity are set forth in
terms as follows, by Judge Johnson, of Savannah, in a
suit to sustain the validity of Whitney's patent :

" The Green Seed is a species much more productive
than the Black, and by nature adapted to a much greater

158 COTTON CULTURE.

variety of climate. But by reason of the strong adher-
ence of the fibre to the seed, without the aid of some more
powerful machine for separating it than any formerly
known among us, the cultivation of it would never have
been made an object. The machine of which Mr. Whit-
ney claims the invention so facilitates the preparation of
this species for use, that the cultivation of it has suddenly
become an object of infinitely greater national importance
than that of the other species ever can be. With regard
to the utility of this discovery, the whole interior of the
Southern States was languishing, and its inhabitants
emigrating for want of some object to engage their atten-
tion and employ their industry, when the invention of this
machine at once opened views to them which set the whole
country in active motion. From childhood to age it has
presented to us a lucrative employment. Individuals
who were depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness,
have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our
debts have been paid off, our capitals have increased, and
our lands trebled themselves in value. We cannot express
the weight of the obligation which the country owes to
this invention. The extent of it cannot now be seen."

A study of the statistical tables, giving the product of
^ cotton for different years, its price, the supplies that come
from various parts of the world, and the distribution of
the cotton raised throughout the world, so far as can be
ascertained, will serve to impress upon our minds the won-
derful commercial results that have followed this invention
of Eli Whitney, and will throw much light upon the ques-
tion as to whether the cotton culture of the United States
is likely to be impaired by the amounts produced in other
countries. When the gin was invented, England received
from America only one bag in a hundred and twenty-six.
Three years after, in 1795, she received one in twenty-five,
and at the beginning of the present century, about one-
eighth of the importation was from America. In 1820,

COTTOX CULTURE. 159

about two-thirds of all the cotton brought into England,
was from the United States. At present, or rather at the
outbreak of the late Civil War, England was dependent
on America for seven-eighths of her cotton supply. From
1806 to 1830, the crop of the United States did not vary
greatly from a million of bales annually. From 1830 to
1840 there was a steady increase, though not without fluc-
tuations produced by unfavorable seasons, until, in the lat-
ter year (1840,) for the first time, the crop went a little
over two millions.

Between 1840 and 1850 the annual crop ranged between
two and three millions, except on three years, when it fell
back to about a million and three-quarters. The crop of
1852 was the first in America that ever went over three
millions. From that time to the crash of the cotton in-
terest, produced by the war ten years after, the crop
ranged between three and three and a half millions, ex-
cept on three years, as in the former decade, .when, on ac-
count of an unfavorable season or the worm, it fell below
two millions. The cotton interest was never so thriving
as immediately before the war. By the law of increase
which we have observed in the foregoing statistics, the
crop of 1862 should have been four millions of bales, and
by the same law should, in four or five years from now,
(1867) be approximating, at least, to five millions of bales.
A similar increase may be noted in the average price of
cotton per pound as in the amount produced; but the
fluctuations here have been much greater. The highest
price realized for any crop previous to the war was for
that of 1820, the highest grades of which sold on an aver-
age for about thirty-four cents per pound. It fell away in
1830 and 1832 to nine cents as an average price, and then
continued to rise until 1836, the crop of which year sold
for nearly seventeen cents per pound ; after which there
was a general though fluctuating decline, the lowest price
being realized for the crops of 1843, 1845, and 1849,

160 COTTON CULTURE.

which brought the planter but little more than six cents a
pound. From 1849 on until 1864 the increase was steady,
until the outbreak of the war, and then enormously rapid.
The average price realized for the crop sold immediately
before the outbreak of the war was about thirteen cents.
The value of that part of the crop which was exported,
generally three-fourths of the whole amount raised, was
something less than one hundred and forty millions annu-
ally, for two or three years previous to the war. The
lowest amount received by the planter was for the crop
of 1831, which sold for only twenty-five millions of dol-
lars, its average price per pound being only nine cents.
The quantity absorbed by the home market in 1856, a lit-
tle more than three-quarters of a million of bales, and
worth about thirty millions of dollars, was, by a moderate
estimate, made to produce nearly five times this sum by
the industry applied to its manufacture in the States north
of Virginia, . In 1856 and 1857, Mr. J. B. Gribble, of New
Orleans, prepared a table presenting the distribution to
various countries of the entire cotton crop raised in all
parts of the world. According to his estimates, the whole
amount produced was a little over four millions of bales.
He assumed the average weight of packages of raw cot-
ton to be : From the West Indies, a hundred and seventy-
three pounds ; Brazil, one hundred and eighty-one ; Egypt,
three hundred and six ; East Indies, three hundred and
eighty-five ; and the United States, four hundred and for-
ty. Reducing all these bales to four hundred pounds
each, he arrives at the following conclusions with regard
to the crop of 1856 and 1857, which may be taken with
very slight modifications as the true exponent of the cot-
ton interest, and the best summary of cotton statistics at
the time when this great staple was at its maximum de-
velopment, just previous to the war : The product of the
West Indies, a little over four thousand bales ; of Brazil,
five thousand five hundred ; of Egypt, eighty-six thous-

COTTON CULTURE. 1G1

and, four hundred and forty-five ; of the East Indies, four
hundred forty-five thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven ;
and for the United States, three millions, eight hundred
and eighty thousand, five hundred and eighty — or nearly
seven-eighths of the product of the world. .

Of this whole amount, a little less than half went di-
rectly to the English mills ; one-sixth was manufactured
in America, and the balance in other European States.

A study of the tables prepared by Mr. Gribble, those
contained in the New Orleans Price Current, and those in
the Xew York Shipping and Commercial List, though va-
rying considerably in their details, as all such tables will,
and none of them more than proximately correct, has
brought me to the following conclusions :

I. — The regular increase in the growth of American
cotton from the year 1830 to the outbreak of the Civil
War was at the rate of an additional million of bales
about every ten years.

II. — The fluctuation in the amount of American cotton
produced has always been moderate ; thus, for instance,
between 1830 and 1840, the crop in three yoars went be-
low the figures of 1830; then again, between 1840 and
1850, the crop went three times below the figure of 1840 ;
thus apparently establishing the rule that drought, frosts,
or the caterpillar, may be expected materially to diminish
only three crops in ten on American soil.

III. — When a crop is once stowed in bottoms at the
great exporting towns, the country to which it shall go is
a matter determined almost entirely by the facilities for
manufacturing which different countries afford ; and as in
England there is, at present, a combination on the larg-
est scale of cheap motive power with cheap labor, Eng-
land will continue to receive the largest amounts of cotton
as long as her coal is abundant and low-priced. In 1860,
she manufactured half the cotton produced in the world.

IV. — The cotton manufactures of Great Britain have

162 COTTON CULTUBE.

advanced pari passu with the development of cotton
growing in the United States ; her looms, spindles, and
her markets, are all adjusted to the staple of American
Upland, and this is the style of cotton of which she re-
quires th£ greatest quantities. American cotton cannot be
replaced in her mills to advantage by that grown either in
India or Africa, and no other manufacturing nation is pre-
pared to underbid England in the production of the finer
qualities of cotton fabrics, especially muslins. Up to 1860
the cotton supply from other sources than the United
States had increased in some cases very slowly, and in oth-
ers decreased ; the principle increase being from East In-
dia and Africa, which furnish the poorest staple.

Y. — England can feel no reliance for her cotton supply
upon any other country than the United States, and
the American supply is, in general, very reliable whenever
the system of labor is settled and permanent. Whatever
cotton can be produced upon American soil will find a
prompt market in England, and until the supply from
America passes two million bales, which are necessary to
keep all the spindles of England in motion, there is no
probability that cotton will fall below fifteen cents, and,
probably, it will not go so low as that for quite a number
of years.

About ten years before our late war, a writer in the
London Economist, an English paper devoted to the ex-
amination of questions like this, traced the progress of
the cotton trade from 1838 to 1850, and the facts, as then
known, brought him to the following conclusions :

That the supply of cotton from other sources than the
United States has been irregularly decreasing; that, in-
cluding the United States, the supply from all quarters
available for English consumption had, of late years, that
is from 1840 to 1850, been falling off at the rate of a
thousand bales a week, while the consumption had been
increasing at the same time at the rate of thirty-six hun-

COTTON CULTUKE. 163

dred bales a week; that in the United States alone, the
growth is increasing, but limited there to about the same
ratio as the increase of the colored laborers, that is, five
per cent, per annum, an increase barely sufficient to sup-
ply the growing demand for its own consumption and for
the continent of Europe; and that, consequently, if this
branch of industry is to increase at all, on its present foot-
ing in Great Britain, it must be by applying a greater
stimulus to the growth of cotton in other countries adapt-
ed to its culture. The incapacity of other regions to sup-
ply the demand being shown, the writer looks to the Brit-
ish West India Islands, and the African and Australasian
colonies as most likely to make up the deficiency.

From the year 1860 to 1865 the question of the cotton
supply was one of intense interest, on account of the al-
most entire withdrawal of contributions to the cotton
market from the American States, coupled with very grave
doubts whether for many years, at least, the state of things
in those unhappy regions would admit of settled and suc-
cessful industry. But we have seen that under the enor-
mous stimulus of, at times, a dollar a pound, and, most of
the time, fifty cents and over per pound, for the last four
years, that the supply from other countries than the Unit-
ed States has not been greatly augmented; and now, as
cottons are slowly declining, the figures are falling back
to about what they were before the war. The effect is
not that the world gets along without American cottons,
but rather that in view of the diminished supply from
America, the consumption of cotton has decreased, and
that of linen, silk, and woolen, especially the latter, has
increased. But this diminished consumption is an enforc-
ed and unnatural state of things. The demand for manu-
factured goods throughout the world is largely increasing,
and the proper conclusion to be drawn from all these facts
and figures is, that no part of the world, during the pres-
ent century, has offered or is likely to offer so large a field

1C4 COTTON CULTURE.

for common, unskilled labor, with returns so certain and
so generous as the cotton States of the North American
Republic.

CHAPTER VIII.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO VARIOUS CLASSES OF PER-
SONS WHO PROPOSE TO ENGAGE IN COTTON GROWING.

With such attractions and natural advantages as the
cotton States possess, and with commercial reasons so
cogent as those presented in the last chapter for believing
in a future for cotton growers in America more brilliant
than anything in the past, it is not to be presumed that
political disorder will, for any great length of time, seri-
ously embarrass the cotton interest. For a while it must
be supposed that the cotton growing interest will be
greatly deranged. There has been and will continue to
be considerable difficulty every spring in obtaining good
seed ; the caterpillar and the army-worm are more likely
to commit their depredations in seasons when the breadth
of lands in cotton is smaller than usual, and the culture
has been languid and imperfect. With cotton at an
average of ten cents per pound, the South for thirty years
before the war was rapidly increasing in wealth, and the
law of increment appeared to be such that the crop doub-
led itself evjery twenty years. Now, with cotton at two
or three times that price, and a larger amount of labor
seeking employment throughout the country than ever be-
fore, it is not credible that political differences and uncer-
tainties can long arrest the march of the great laws of
political economy. It requires little sagacity to predict
that this transition state cannot last long, since society is
so rigidly controlled by its material interests as not to

COTTON CtJLTTJRE. 165

permit the continuance for a great length of time of such
a state of things. One great effect of the recent radical
changes in Southern society has been the opening of the
cotton fields of the South to the labor of all races, instead
of their being restricted to the labor of one, and in giving
scope to every class of industrial enterprises and to varied
forms of organized labor. Up to the year 1860 there was,
practically, but one way of raising cotton, but one class
of persons who performed the labor, and but a single and
unvarying system for applying that labor to the soil.
Now those lands can be and are likely to be possessed and
tilled, in many instances by large joint stock companies,
whose operations extend over an area of perhaps twenty
thousand acres, and whose business reaches annually to
hundreds of thousands of dollars. Enterprises like this
were impracticable and unknown under the former system.
Very large amounts of cotton, greater, perhaps, than by
any other method, will be grown, as grass and wheat and
corn are produced, in the Northern and North-western
States, by the labor of the land-owner himself, who, with
the aid of one or two assistants in summer, cultivates the
forty, sixty, or eighty acres of which he holds the fee
simple. There will be opportunities, also, for the success-
ful application of another class of labor to the cultivation
of this crop ; the owners of those large tracts of from
three hundred to three and four thousand acres, having no
means of cultivating such a breadth, will be very willing
to rent it to any industrious person who, without capital,
has a disposition to work, and the proprietor -will receive
his pay in a share of the crop raised. As soon as the
composure of society is such as to give ample security to
both life and property, and such is believed to be the case
by the Northern and European States, there must be a
large influx of both population and wealth into the cotton
region. These accessions to society then will naturally be
divided into three general classes.

166 COTTON CULTURE.

First — The large capitalist and the joint stock com-
panies of Northern cities, who will engage in cotton
raising with the same energy, the same skill, and the same
generous appropriation of funds which have characterized
their operations in coal mines, railroads, oil wells in Penn-
sylvania, and stamping mills in the Rocky Mountains.

Second — A larger class will be those who bring some
capital, a large amount of intelligence, sagacity, and in-
dustry, and who propose to cultivate cotton farms where
this shall be a specialty, but by no means an exclusive
crop. This class are the best that can migrate to any
country, and if they go South in any considerable num-
bers, they will soon impose a law of their own upon so-
ciety.

Third — A class much larger than either of the two men-
tioned above will be the common laborer, the impoverish-
ed American, the German, the Irish, and eventually the
Chinese, who will engage in the labor of tilling and har-
vesting the crop in precisely the same spirit as that in
which they have built railroads, tunneled mountains, ex-
cavated canals, and removed the fertilizing deposits upon
the Lobos Islands to the wheat fields and the gardens of
England and America. A majority of them, probably,
will be employed by the large capitalists and the stock
companies; others more thrifty and self-reliant will, at
first, find employment with the small producers, and from
this will soon come to be themselves planters on soil
which they have earned by hard labor.

There are certain parts of the cotton growing regions
which are especially suited to each of these classes, and
this treatise cannot, perhaps, be concluded by anything
more useful or practical than a few suggestions to each of
these various classes of immigrants, the advice, if such it
may be called, being directed, mainly, to such questions
as naturally arise with regard to soil, climate, salubrity,
facility of transportation, and social surroundings.

COTTON CULTURE. 167

The large capitalist and the joint stock company who
go into the cotton business precisely as they would into an
oil speculation, or a silver mine, will, of course, make ev-
ery other consideration bend to that of profit. The ques-
tion with them will be, where and how to produce cotton
in such a way that a hundred thousand dollars invested
in the business will yield from twenty-five to fifty thousand
dollars annual returns. The salubrity of a country, the
agreeableness of the inhabitants as neighbors, the distance
from schools, churches, and villages, are matters of minor
importance with those who are seeking principally the al-
mighty dollar. The two grand requisites which the cap-
italist asks for in order to make a profitable investment,
are a fertile soil, and easy and cheap access. Of course he
must feel himself, to a great extent, secure from inunda-
tion and, if possible, from the ravages of insects. He
will hardly look at any other lands than rich alluvions, of
which there is a great abundance throughout the cotton
belt. He will find the requisite degree of fertility in any
of the superior cotton lands which are capable of produc-
ing a bale or more per acre, without manure and without
rotation. These on the tinted map, which faces Part II.,
Chapter L, are colored red. By examining that map, it
will be seen that four of the Gulf States furnish a large
body of land of this description, and his choice will nat-
urally be made of one of these four States, Alabama, Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, including the southeastern corner of Ar-
kansas, and Texas. The superior lands of South Carolina
and Georgia are much more limited in extent, held at
higher figures, and not so much in market. This is true
to quite an extent of that admirable body of black land
in Alabama which lies between the two main rivers of that
State, the Alabama and the Tombigbee, and which is fully
described in the chapter connected with the cotton map.
As regards health, these cotton fields of Middle Alabama
are more desirable than any other rich lands in the South,

168 COTTOX CULTURE.

unless it be the black prairies of Texas, which they very
much resemble. They are entirely secure from overflow
and quite easy of access both by river navigation and
railroad ; at least, the access to Mobile and the Gulf of
Mexico is ready. The objection in that regard is, that
communication towards the North is circuitous and ex-
pensive, and in a few years another serious objection with
a company or capitalist that proposes to connect the man-
ufacture with the production of cotton, will be the lack
of fuel. Coal, said to be bituminous in quality and very
excellent, exists in Alabama. " A vein of this coal is first
seen," says De Bow in his Industrial Resources, " in the
bed of the Black Warrior River, near Tuscaloosa, and pur-
sues a north-east direction until it crosses the Alabama and
Coosa Rivers at, or just above, their falls, and probably
thence passes into Georgia." But the bed has never been
worked to any considerable extent, and it is still problem-
atical whether it is sufficient in width and dip to furnish
large amounts. At present, on the Southern borders of
this triangle of land there are extensive forests which, for
some years at least, will supply all necessary fuel for man-
ufacturing and domestic purposes ; so that the difficulty
suggested is by no means formidable or insuperable. It
is simply a matter to be taken into consideration by the
capitalist, who may be seeking an investment in cotton
lands, which shall be in all respects most fortunate and
judicious. In the Trans-Mississippi region, that is to say,
in the river bottoms and black prairies of Texas, there is
presented another large body of superior lands, similar to
those of Alabama in the color of the soil, almost identi-
cally situated in regard to corhmunication with the Gulf,
and capable of satisfying any one as to their depth of loam
and the permanence of their fertility. They are some-
what larger in extent than those of Alabama, and have
the advantage of being virgin soil, the greater part of
which has never felt the share. It is less favorably situ-

• COTTON CULTURE. 169

ated, however, with respect to moisture, especially the
western part.« The seasons of Alabama are such, that all
crops that can be cultivated in that climate grow well and
come to maturity. In Texas, particularly Western Texas,
there is moisture enough for cotton and for grass, but
three years out of five the corn crop is a failure for want
of rain. The objection suggested to the best lands of
Alabama, that they are difficult of access from the North,
applies with still greater force to the cotton region of
Texas. Railroads from Yicksburg and Memphis have
partially penetrated to those regions from the east and
north-east, but land carriage of a crop so bulky as cotton
for a distance of four hundred or five hundred miles is so
tedious and expensive as to be well nigh impracticable on
anything like a large scale. On the other hand these
lands, considering their very fine quality, are cheap ; they
can be obtained for about a hundred per cent, less than
lands of equal intrinsic value in the older States. From
ten to twenty-five dollars per acre, according to situation,
will place the capitalist in possession of lands admirably
suited to his purposes. How far cheapness on the one
hand outweighs remoteness on the other, and to what extent
intrinsic value is offset by difficulty of access, are matters
about which good business men will differ. If a perma-
nent investment is sought, and it is proposed to unite
manufactures with agriculture, the want of fuel would be
eventually a more embarrassing question in Texas than in
Alabama. According to Haldeman's revised edition of
Taylor's work on the Coal Regions of the United States,
coal exists on the Trinity River two hundred miles above
Galveston, near Nacogdoches, and also near Austin, in
considerable quantities; but like the carbonaceous de-
posits of Alabama, those of Texas have never been work-
ed, and it is doubtful whether they will be able to supply
the place for fuel of the pine forests of which there is
great extent in the eastern part of the State.
8

170 COTTON CULTURE.

These facilities for cotton growing and attractions to
capitalists in the two States which lie to tbe right and to
the left of the region that drains into the lower Mississippi
Valley have been first discussed, in order to show that the
last mentioned section presents decidedly a more attrac-
tive field than either.

Let us turn now to this teeming valley and examine that
part of it which lies below Memphis, with a view to in-
vestments in cotton planting. From the mouth of the
Mississippi up to where it receives the waters of Red Riv-
er, the banks of the stream, though inexhaustibly fertile,
are unsuited to cotton. That part of Louisiana which lies
south of Red River, is the sugar bowl of the Union ; the
soil is not sufficiently light and sandy for cotton. It is a
firm, strong, tenacious, clayey loam, rich in vegetable
mould, the natural growth of which is cypress, live oak
and palmetto, and cotton, when planted there, presents a
rank and luxurious growth ; but the vigor of the plant
does not expend itself upon the fruit, as is the case a hun-
dred miles farther north. At Red River the cotton lands
commence ; the lowest part of the Red River valley, for
seventy-five miles before it empties into the Mississippi, is
almost an unbroken swamp. The land is of the greatest
fertility, but is covered almost every year by inundations,
the water standing upon it in some places three inches
deep, and in others twenty feet, and depositing annually a
layer of fine fertilizing mud. If some way could be de-
vised for redeeming this part of the Red River valley from
annual overflow, several hundred thousand acres of land,
as rich as the bottoms of the Nile, would be added to the
cotton lands of Louisiana. Ascending the stream we find,
in the vicinity of Alexandria, and for a short distance up
the valley, a group of sugar plantations ; above these, as
far up as Shreveport, and for a hundred miles beyond, in
Arkansas and Texas, cotton alone is planted. Among the
superior cotton lands of the South, those of Red River

COTTON CULTURE. 171

stand preeminent ; they are easily protected from overflow,
the soil is an alluvion, as rich in the elements of vegetable
life at the depth of fifty feet as at the surface ; the seasons
are well suited to the growth of corn and various other
edible crops; and this magnificent valley is flanked on
either side by a wide extent of pine forests, veined with
narrow but fertile creek bottoms, affording a broad range
for the stock of river plantations, and a supply of fuel
that it will take generations to exhaust. The objections
to this country are the miasms of the river bottom and
the absence of good water, requiring the construction of
a great number of cisterns, or of arrangements for filtrat-
ing the river water ; but with all due allowance for these
discounts, there are no lands in the world which offer
greater inducements than these of Red River, to the large
capitalist or the enterprising stock company who aspire to
brand their cotton bales by the thousand. A bale and a
half and two bales per acre is no uncommon yield ; for
something like eight months in the year the access to New
Orleans and the Gulf by steamboats is unembarrassed.
No part of the whole Southern country can present so
many instances of magnificent fortunes, accumulated by a
few years industry, as might have been found in 1860, in
passing as the traveler did for four hundred miles from
Alexandria up through a series of superb planting estates.
If, instead of descending Red River for the purpose
of reaching the Mississippi, the traveler should pass
directly east from Shreveport, in the direction of Vicks-
burg, he would for. some seventy-five miles ride through
pine woods broken here and there by a little strip
of fertile land. This section is marked green on the
cotton map. On approaching the valley of the Ouach-
ita, the scene undergoes a sudden and total change.
The pine hills suddenly stop, the growth becomes cy-
press, cane, sycamore, sweet gum, tupelo gum, and
poplar, all indicative of the richest soil and the most

172 COTTON CULTURE.

perfect adnptation to the growth of cotton. These lands
extend eastward to the waters of the Mississippi, a dis-
tance of some sixty miles. Here, at Vicksburg, we may
pass over into the State of Mississippi, and on the right
bank of the river, as we ascend, there is a similar body of
land from twenty-five to forty miles in width, and extend-
ing all the way from Vicksburg to Memphis. The first,
and we may say almost the only question which the capi-
talist will ask with reference to this entire tract of land is :
What parts of this unequaled soil are exempt from annual
inundation ? The facilities for transportation are almost
unparalleled; on thousands and tens of thousands of
plantations there would be no practical difficulty in build-
ing the gin-house or the factory in such a way that the
bales of cotton might be allowed to slide directly from the
press-room to the deck of a steamboat. The soil here is
quite uniform in the degree of its fertility, as may be seen
by the uniform growth with which it is covered. It may
be remarked, also, that the disasters of the late war have
fallen heavy upon this region, deranging titles, divesting
estates, and placing immense bodies of these lands within
easy reach of capital. The plantations which lie directly
upon the Mississippi have this advantage, that they are in
easy and immediate communication with the great cities
of the Northwest, so that the produce of these lands could
be taken at once either up or down the river, and discharg-
ed at St. Louis, at New Orleans, at Memphis, at Louisville,
or Cincinnati, according to the drift of commerce and the
facilities for manufacture. An establishment such as is
described in Chapter V, Part II, of this Treatise, might
be located in Missouri, in Southern Illinois, in Western
Tennessee, or on the Ohio River, and receive its supplies
of cotton in the seed from plantations five hundred miles
distant, and the freight be so moderate as to be more than
offset by the cheapness of labor and the abundance of
breadstuff's in the more northern situations. There is no

COTTON CULTURE. ITS

difficulty at all with regard to fuel in all this region ; the
entire valley is covered by a dense forest growth, the re-
moval of which, for purposes of fuel, will probably be
found quite too slow to meet the demand for more open
land ; and when all the forests near the front are cut away,
a flat boat, loaded with several hundred tons of coal, can
be floated down from the upper Ohio and landed at any
point along the great river for a few cents more per bush-
el than would be its cost at Cincinnati.

Everything in the situation and in the natural sur-
roundings and facilities afforded by this region, seems to
point to operations to be conducted on a large scale,
with command of ample capital ; all the imjflrovements
of modern ingenuity and business enterprise being
made to contribute to magnificent results, where the
inexhaustible fertility of the soil, taken in connection
with the constant and cheap access to all other parts
of the country, shall present a combination of agri-
cultural and manufacturing skill which has never yet been
equalled on this continent. Here is a soil and climate
perfectly adapted to the growth of cotton, in connection
with the sources of a motive power inexhaustible as the
coal beds of the West, and all washed by the waters of a
mighty inland ocean so deep that the Great Eastern might
be floated a thousand miles inland, and then steam direct
from the gin-houses that will dot the bank of the mighty
stream to the Liverpool docks.

But these rank and wide alluvions, teeming with luxuri-
ant vegetable growth, are not the only cotton lands of the
South. There are sections which are as attractive to the
farmer of moderate means, who desires to establish a
Southern home, as the former to the capitalist hunting for
a lucrative investment. The grand objection to the great-
er part of the very fertile lands above described, is that
they are unsuitable for homes and as locations for family
residences. The surface is commonly a dead level ; the

174 COTTOX CULTURE.

water, except that which descends from the clouds, never
good; the air often loaded with feverish miasms and
swarming with nmsquitoes. He who seeks a suitable
place where he may build him a home, in an air that is free
and wholesome ; where the water is pure and abundant ;
the scenery not without some picturesque attractions, and
the social surroundings agreeable, will not select an allu-
vial tract. By reference to the cotton map in the early
part of this Treatise, a large breadth of country will ap-
pear tinted yellow ; this indicates hill lands where, in gen-
eral, the soil, without special treatment, does not yield a
bale to the acre, but where the other conditions of com-
fort and w^ll-being are much more easily supplied. These
are the sections that should be visited by the man who
proposes to buy a hundred or two acres, and to raise,
among other crops, twenty or thirty bales of cotton.
Perhaps the first locality that will attract a man with
views and plans of this character, will be the country south
of Nashville, bounded on the east by the Cumberland
Mountains, and on the west by the valley of the Lower Ten-
nessee. There is no first class cotton land here except, per-
haps, a few narrow strips along the river bank in North
Alabama. The seasons here are too short for the produc-
tion of full crops, but in a great number of minds this cir-
cumstance would be considered as more than offset by the
extreme beauty of Middle Tennessee, the lovely slopes of
emerald, the noble wealth of oaken forests, the clear run-
ning streams, the perfect healthiness of the climate, and
the high tone of social refinement and morality that per-
vades the community.

Another redeeming feature by all means deserves men-
tion. With the Tennessee farmer, cotton is only one of sev-
eral crops which he can successfully cultivate ; the land
produces excellent tobacco. A few years ago Tennessee
was the leading State in the growth of corn. The apple,
pear, and peach tree, flourish ; hemp is a profitable crop,

COTTON CULTTJEE. 175

and wheat is largely raised. The titles to lands have been
considerably disturbed by the war, and there are a large
number of acres in every town that can be obtained at
moderate prices. Except in a few instances the lands of
Tennessee are divided into tracts of moderate size, seven-
ty-one acres being the average of improved land in each
farm, so that the man of moderate means who is looking
for a farm where he can, in a favorable season, raise a few
thousand pounds of cotton with most of the other Ameri-
can crops, need not pass south of the Tennessee River in
his search. The same remarks here made of Middle Ten-
nessee apply with some modifications to the north-eastern
counties of Mississsippi, and the northern pa^ts of Ala-
bama and Georgia. Much of the surface here is broken
and sterile ; in many counties wheat is the leading crop,
but nearly every farmer raises a little cotton. The land-
scapes are not so attractive as those of Middle Tennessee,
nor the water so good, there being, in this respect, wide
differences in adjoining counties. The northern and par-
ticularly the north-western counties of Arkansas are ad-
mirably adapted both as to soil, climate, and the degree
of moisture, to the wants of the cotton farmer as distin-
guished from the cotton planter. The present objection
of remoteness and difficulty of access is being rapidly
overcome by the building of railroads ; there is no part of
the entire South where the man of moderate means can
obtain, on better terms, a tract of, say two hundred acres,
on which he may grow corn, wheat, oats, potatoes of both
kinds, and send to market from ten to twenty bales of cot-
ton, from which to realize the principal part of his clear
income. As farming can be successfully combined with
cotton growing in the sections just mentioned, so the joint
production of cotton and beef is eminently practicable in
a wide range of counties in the northern part of Texas.
They are mostly prairie lands, where stock-raising is the
first and the natural occupation of the inhabitants ; but

176 COTTON CULTURE.

the soil and climate both are well adapted to cotton. That
region is still, for the most part, wild and sparsely inhab-
ited ; lands of great intrinsic value can be obtained at
very moderate prices, the average not rising above five
dollars an acre.

The immigrant who carries into the cotton growing
States no capital but his two hands, must, of course, at
first, be almost wholly governed in the selection of his
field of labor by the grand consideration of demand.
Waiving all other questions, the laborer will be certain to
go where he can get the highest wages ; and the large
planter, the capitalist, or the joint stock company, who
are in possession of a tract of alluvial soil on some of the
great navigable streams, will oiFer him the greatest in-
ducements. With cotton at thirty cents a pound, on a
soil that produces a bale and more to the acre, there is no
reason why the laborer should not receive handsome wages ;
the cotton grower who pays two dollars a day to a good
hand can, if bis crop succeeds, clear over two hundred
dollars on each hand. When cotton declines in price, the
value of labor in the cotton crop must fill ; but as long as
it continues at the present high figure, there is no reason
why the laborer should not enjoy the benefit of it as well
as the land-owner or the speculator. The more intelligent
and thrifty a laborer is, the more rapidly will he rise from
the position of a hireling ; there is no need that the indus-
trious and economical working man should long remain
landless. The savings of a single year will enable him to
buy as much land as he can till in cotton ; as soon as he
can secure a title or get legal possession of fifteen acres
and a mule, he can begin to be independent, and from this
beginning, hard work, economy, and thrift will, in a few
years, make him a hundred-bale planter. It should be re-
marked, however, that much precaution is required if he
would avoid loss of time and the impairing of his consti-
tution by sickness. The rich cotton lands are, generally

COTTOX CULTURE. 177

speaking, malarious ; chill and fever, to some extent, he
cannot remain exempt from, but two or three simple rules,
strictly observed, will enable the laborer on swamp land
to retain his health in a large proportion of cases.

First — Xo night work. The air of a malarious bottom
is healthy enough while the sun falls upon it, but at dusk
the poison begins to settle and enters the system through
the pores as well as through the lungs.

Second — Flannel next to the skin the year round. It is
more important in southern than in northern climates, be-
cause the contrast between the temperature of mid-day
and midnight is much greater.

Third — At the time of the early frosts and throughout
the winter, the laborer should, by the terms of his con-
tract, be furnished with a cup of hot coffee early in the
morning. Xo other drink is so well suited to counteract
the febrile tendencies of that season ; it is far more effec-
tual and less mischievous than any alcoholic drink.

With regard to the summer heat of the more elevated
and northerly parts of the Gulf States, Arkansas and Ten-
nessee, we find the line of mean summer temparature start-
ing from near the centre of the coast of North Carolina,
passing nearly westward* through the centre of South
Carolina and Georgia ; thence it turns northward through
Northern Alabama across Tennessee and the western ex-
tremity of Kentucky into Southern Illinois. Thence it
bears southward again, through Southern Missouri and
Northern Arkansas.

The Anglo-Saxon has never considered it any particular
hardship to till the soil in Missouri, yet its summer heat is
as great as that of Middle and Northern Geopgia, and the
temperature and health of Southern Illinois will not com-
pare favorably with those of Middle Tennessee. A sur-
vey of the map connected with this volume will show a
broad tract of cotton country lying in Georgia, South
Carolina, Northern Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and
8*

178 COTTON CULTURE.

Texas, the land of farms, not of plantations, on which a
million and a half of bales have been produced in a given
year, of which a very large proportion was grown by white
labor previous to the changes inaugurated in 1861.

Not more than half of the surface of this region is
likely ever to be brought under the plow. As a general
rule, the productive capacity of the better half of these
lands may be put at three hundred pounds per acre of gin-
ned cotton, although with intelligent and scientific culture,
the average might easily be from four to five hundred
pounds.

Let us now see what advantages the small farmer, who
goes there for the purpose of engaging in the production
of cotton, will have over the Western farmer. He can, in
general, get a hundred acres of this land for a sum rang-
ing somewhere between five hundred and two thousand
dollars, according to the state of cultivation and quality
of the buildings. Allowing five hundred more for stock
and tools, he can commence cotton growing. On the sup-
position that his field force amounts to four hands, at least
during the busy season, he will be justified in planting
about thirty acres in cotton. These thirty acres should
produce him twenty bales of cotton of four hundred
pounds each. These, at twenty-five cents a pound, will
bring him two thousand dollars, of which, say five hun-
dred may go for labor, leaving him fifteen hundred dollars
as profit. Beside the cotton crop, he can, with the usual
Northern industry, produce food enough to keep all the
stock necessary on such a place and bread for his family. As
a rule, throughout this region, stock, unless hard-worked,
do not need over three months' feeding ; in many sections
not two. Here we shall soon see Northern economy, the
seed no longer wasted or misapplied, but the rich oil which
composes twelve and a half per cent, of its weight ex-
pressed and turned to a useful purpose ; the land no longer
exhausted by a ruinous system of culture, but the manure

COTTON CTTLTUBE. 179

returned, and the cotton farm growing richer instead of
poorer year by year. With increasing population manu-
factures will multiply, and most of the coarser fabrics be
woven within sight of the field where the staple grows.
Many years will elapse before the finer fabrics can be pro-
duced as successfully as they can be in the great mills of
Manchester and Lowell.

The experience of the world, since the outbreak of our
civil war, has established the great superiority of North
America as the cotton growing region of the globe. The
sceptre of King Cotton is not broken ; it has merely
shifted hands.

The possible future of cotton culture, as compared with
the past, may be seen from the fact, that of all this vast
region which has been so minutely described, only a very
small fractional part has ever been converted into cotton
fields. There are sixty-four squares on a checker-board.
Xow suppose the cotton belt to be that checker-board, and
the fields actually planted in cotton would represent but
one square, that is, one sixty-fourth part only of the " cot-
ton fields of America " are, properly speaking, cotton fields.

This statement will give a clearer conception than any
figures of the comparative infancy of cotton culture in the
United States. The sheep from whose fleeces mankind
derive their warmest clothing, dot ten thousand hill-sides
in all the temperate regions of the earth. The Silk- worm,
from whose golden cocoon man makes his costliest fabric,
is confined to no zone or belt. But for the material of our
cheapest cloth the world looks to America. And here
millions of acres of virgin and inexhaustible soil await the
onward march of the grand army of labor, that shall level
the forests, turn the prairie sod, plant, cultivate and gather
the crop whose snowy fibre, twisted by billions of spindles,

Shall FORM THE CLOTHING OF THE RACE.

180 COTTON CULTURE.

CHAPTER IX.

COTTON SEED, COTTON SEED OIL, COTTON SEED CAKE.

BY J. K. SYPHER, ESQ.

To every bale of cotton-lint, weighing 400 pounds,
there are produced about 1400 pounds of seed. Though
for many years no good use was made of the cotton seed
that accumulated in great heaps about the gin-houses, it
has long been known that the kernel of the seed is rich in
oil. As early as 1826, a gentleman in the State of Vir-
ginia constructed a small machine by which he was ena-
bled to express from crushed cotton seed a dark red oil,
which, when burned in a common lard oil lamp, gave a
fair light. No practical use was made of this discovery,
and for many years the facts thus developed were known
only to a few friends of the original experimenter. When,
however, the extensive and successful production of cot-
ton made cotton goods so very cheap that the production
of flax, and, consequently, the supply of flax seed greatly
fell away, the proprietors of linseed oil mills began to
look about in search of some substitute upon which to
employ their crushers and presses. " Pea-nuts," " castor
beans," cotton seed, and many other articles, were tested.

These experimenters experienced difficulties which me-
chanical genius subsequently overcame. When the seed
of Upland cotton comes from the gin, it is covered with a
thick coat of short lint, which adheres strongly to the dry,
hard pericarp that surrounds the kernel, or meat, in the
seed. In the absence of any contrivance by which the
lint-coating and pericarp could be removed, it was neces-
sary to grind or crush the seed in an ordinary burr-
stone, or iron mill, and to put the whole mass into the
boxes of the press. The oil was easily forced from the
broken seed, but the intermatting lint immediately absorb-
ed the greater portion of it. In the experiments made

COTTON CULTURE. 181

with the seed of ,/Sea Island cotton, to which the lint does
not adhere closely, and which, therefore, may be delivered
from the gin as clean as the pericarp of a chestnut, a more
satisfactory yield of oil was obtained. The result, how-
ever, was not ybf a character that would induce manufac-
turers to engage regularly in the production of cotton-seed
oil. A few years later, mechanics constructed and patent-
ed machines that successfully removed the lint and peri-
carp from the kernel, after which, by means of a revolv-
ing screw, the hulled seed was separated from the trash.

About the year 1855, some of the largest linseed oil
mills in the country were converted into cotton-seed oil
mills, and very soon new and extensive establishments
were erected expressly for the manufacture of this oil. The
principal and most successful of these mills were located,
one in Providence, R. I., one in St. Louis, two in "New
Orleans, and two in Memphis; of these the Providence,
one of the Xew Orleans, and the St. Louis mills alone
survived the war.

The supply of raw material for these establishments
was drawn wholly from the immediate line of the great
navigable water-courses. The mills at Xew Orleans, at
Memphis, and that at St. Louis, readily contracted with
the steamboat lines to carry cotton-seed at very low rates
of freight on return trips, when other freight in that di-
rection was very scarce ; the Providence Company made
similar contracts with sailing vessels from New Orleans
and other ports, both along the Atlantic and on the Gulf
Coast. There was never any lack of seed ; for all these
mills, running at their greatest capacity, could not con-
sume the seed that could be delivered, conveniently, upon
the banks of the Mississippi River and its lower tribu-
taries.

The seed was purchased only by weight, and was usu-
ally contracted for at ton rates. The price varied, before the
war, from four dollars to eight dollars per ton, delivered

182 COTTOX CULTURE.

in sacks upon the bank of the river, at some convenient
landing ; the sacks usually contained from 80 to 100
pounds, and were supplied by the manufacturers, who sent
them to the planters. When cotton seed oil mills were
first erected in the South, the planters, who had, previous
to that tune, been in the habit of allowing their cotton seed
to rot about the gin-houses, were suddenly seized with the
idea that this seed was a very valuable article of trade,
and that the demand would be far beyond the supply ;
many, therefore, began to house and take care of the seed,
and held large quantities at prices varying from eight to
twelve dollars a ton ; and, for a few years, the manufac-
turers paid as high as ten dollars per ton for the seed they
consumed. But as soon as they learned what quantity of
seed was produced for each bale of cotton that was grown
they put down the price ; and, in 1860, more seed was
offered at five dollars per ton, than their mills could have
consumed during the year.

A proper mill for the manufacture of oil and oil-cake
from cotton seed, should consist of a substantial building
having three and a half stories and basement, one hundred
feet long by forty to fifty wide. The engine should have
power in proportion to the proposed capacity of the fac-
tory — twenty horse-power, if two pairs of five-box
hydraulic presses are used. The hydraulic presses must
be placed on a firm foundation, carefully laid. Heaters
and rollers are machines made by the same machinists
that supply the presses and pumps. Of hullers, the ma-
chines that bear the same relation to oil that gins do
to lint, there are two or three patterns that will do the
work, though the best, because it is least liable to get out
of order and has a much greater capacity than any other,
is one invented by Abram J. Sypher, for some time an en-
gineer in the United States Navy. This machine is in its
appearance, in its operation, and manner of receiving
seed, somewhat similar to a wheat thresher. The seed

COTTON CULTURE. 183

is delivered into the huller by an endless canvass apron ;
it passes under a cylinder revolving at great speed,
armed with steel blades, and surrounded about two-third's
way by a concave box also armed with corresponding
knives. As the seed is forced between these, the pericarp,
or hull, is broken and forced from the kernel. The mass of
crushed seed then falls into a great revolving sieve. The
kernels, many of which are broken into fine pieces, pass
through the meshes of the wire sieve, and the pericarp, to
which the lint adheres, is carried away and delivered into
the fire-room, where it is burned under the boilers, and
affords a full supply of good fuel for the use of the estab-
lishment. The clean seed is now carried by means of a
system of elevators to the attic story, and then passes down
into the crushers or rollers. These eonsist chiefly of two
rollers revolving towards each other with unequal veloci-
ty, so geared as to produce both a crushing and a tearing
effect upon the seed. The meal, as the seed is now called,
falls to the bin on the first floor, and is shoveled into the
heater by the pressman's attendant. The heater is a short,
double cylinder, so arranged as to heat the meal in the in-
ner cylinder by steam, which circulates in the space be-
tween the inner and the outer walls. Here the meal is
heated until the water is converted into steam and
escapes; the hot meal is then placed in wedge-shape
bags, made of woolen duck; these are placed in hair
books, which slide into the boxes of the press. As soon
as the pressman has filled all the books, the pump is
set to working, and the tremendous power of the hydraul-
ic press soon forces out the liquid oil in warm, gushing
streams. Seven minutes up, and the press returns ; the
books are thrown out, the duck bags are stripped from the
meal, now pressed into solid cakes, the cakes are set up in
racks to dry, and thus the operation is completed.

From the seed which was thrown into the huller, two
merchantable articles are produced at the press, crude

184 COTTOX CULTURE.

cotton seed oil, and cotton seed cake. After the oil has
cooled down to atmospheric temperature, and the floating
impurities have separated from it and settled to the bottom
of the tank, it is of a deep red color, and weighs about
seven and a half pounds to the gallon. This quality of
oil found a market among oil refiners, who, usually by
very simple processes, removed the mechanical impuri-
ties and destroyed the coloring matter so as to produce an,
oil of a rich olive color, sweet and agreeable to the taste.
Much of this found its way to the tables of our first-class
hotels and private families. As a substitute for olive oil,
it has no equal, and when flavored by the addition of
genuine olive it is much superior to any other adulteration
yet produced. The chief consumers of the cotton seed
oil, however, are the soap-makers. The oil was purchased
by manufacturers in its crude state, and from it was pro-
duced almost every grade of soap, from the cheapest fam-
ily, to pure white castile, and the finest and most highly
perfumed toilet soaps. The Philadelphia manufacturers
were among the first, and always the largest, consumers
of cotton seed oil in soap-making. The single house of
Thain & McKeone, afterwards McKeone, Van Haagen &
Co., consumed more than one-half of all the cotton seed
oil that was used under its true name and in a pure state.
These gentlemen discovered a very simple and cheap
method of refining and bleaching the oil, and were thus
enabled to produce a quality of cotton seed oil as clear and
as limpid as pure water. Every grade of the oil was
thoroughly tested in this establishment, and efforts were
made to apply it to every possible use. At one time the
proprietors hoped to make it one of the most profit-
able articles of trade, but, after the most thorough and
persistent trials, wherein it was used in making every qual-
ity of soap and in adulterating all of the vegetable and
some of the heavier animal oils, tested as a lubricator, as
an illuminator, as a paint oil mixed with linseed oil, and as

COTTON CULTURE. 185

a table oil, its use was finally abandoned even at the price
of fifty cents a gallon.

Practical soap makers say, the quantity of stearine
contained in cotton seed oil is insufficient to take up the
quantity of resin necessary to make a superior quality
of family soap. In the manufacture of the finest qualities
of fancy soaps, it seemed to be a first-class stock. But,
after the soaps of all grades were packed in boxes and
allowed to stand a few months, a dark brown liquid, of
a gummy nature, would ooze from the bars and cakes,
and the soap would become soft. It, therefore, was un-
salable, and hence the use of cotton seed oil was aban-
doned. The ablest chemists in the country were employed
to analyze the oil, and to discover, if possible, an agent
that would destroy or neutralize this unmanageable ele-
ment. These efforts of science were unsuccessful, though
they were conducted under the patronage of one of the
largest establishments in the country ; soap-makers, there-
fore, concluded that a firm, durable soap could not be
made from cotton seed oil.

At about this same tune a series of experiments made
with great care, by Mr. A. W. Harrison, manufacturer of
various grades of soap, perfumery, extracts, ink and other
articles, in Philadelphia, resulted much more favorably.

Mr. Harrison says :

" In the years 1860 and '61, I used large quantities of
cotton-seed oil in the manufacture of family soap, and
found it to possess peculiar and valuable qualities for that
purpose.

" Considerable skill and careful manipulation are required
for the production of hard soap from this oil ; but, after
many experiments, I succeeded in obtaining, uniformly
and readily, a firm, solid, fine-grained soap, of a pale yel-
low or cream color, and of the highest quality. It gives,
without the use of resin or any other foreign substance, a

186 COTTON CULTURE.

thick, creamy lather, and possesses a detergent property
superior to any other soap known.

" In order to test its washing qualities under the most
adverse circumstances, I prepared a piece of coarse bag-
ging by saturating it with grease from the wheel of a dray,
rubbing it well into the fabric and drying it. I then made
a strong, cold, salt brine, and in this liquid, with the cot-
ton-seed oil soap, washed the bagging perfectly clean,
with little labor, leaving the fabric uninjured. I know of
no soap that will endure so severe a test.

" As a shaving soap it is unsurpassed for its rich and
emollient lather. The oil used was clarified, of a pale
straw color ; some lots were almost colorless.

" My attempts to manufacture extemporaneous or " cold-
made soap," invariably failed. A dark, gummy liquid,
would exude from the soap after some weeks standing,
which rendered it unsalable."

Mr. Harrison believes refined cotton-seed oil, at sixty
cents a gallon, to be the cheapest and most durable soap
stock known to commerce. He continued to use it freely
as long as it could be obtained in large quantities, and, up
to the time of the beginning of war of the rebellion, was
the second largest consumer in this country.

Notwithstanding the variety of uses to which this oil
was applied, and the quantities purchased by a few large
dealers and manufacturers, the demand was never fully up
to the supply ; and the oil pressers always worked against
a dull market, and often were overstocked with oil, for
which they could find no purchasers. At this time about
50,000 tons of seed were consumed by the oil mills, yield-
ing, at the rate of 30 gallons per ton, about 1,500,000 gal
Ions of crude oil. Estimating the cotton cro£ for such
portions of the country as are most accessible to cheap
transportation at 3,000,000 bales, the seed available for
oil-making would amount to 1,500,000 tons, yielding
45,000,000 gallons of oil annually. The first and great

COTTON CULTURE. 187

necessity therefore is to find a more general use for this
oil, in which the cotton region so greatly abounds. As
an illuminator it is not equal to lard oil ; mixed with pe-
troleum it makes a medium lubricator ; painters have used
it either pure or mixed as a substitute for linseed oil ; oil
dealers have mixed it with lard oil, with almond, pea-nut,
cocoa-nut, and with olive oil ; but this surreptitious mode
of treating it in trade gave it a bad name in commerce,
and hence only small quantities found sale under the
name of cotton-seed oil, except to a few soap-makers, who
purchased it and used it in its true name and character.

The refining process is simple, and, after a little practice,
may be successfully conducted by any one possessed of ordi-
nary skill. The agent employed to remove the impurities
is a solution of the soda ash of commerce, having a
strength of about 30 degrees. The oil is put into a large
metal tank, supplied with steam pipes for heating, and
with proper apparatus to keep the oil thoroughly agitated.
The caustic solution and the oil, when mixed, should be
at the temperatilre of the atmosphere in the factory, and
about one gallon of the solution should be put into ten
gallons of oil, mixed in 'small quantities, at intervals of a
few minutes. The mixture should then be slowly heated
up to 100 degrees, then allowed to cool. During the
pouring in of the solution, and while the mixture is being
heated, and until the temperature has gone down nearly
to its natural state, the stirring apparatus should be kept
in motion. The oil should then be left in the tank at
least 24 hours, that the impurities may settle to the bot-
tom ; then, by a faucet inserted at a distance of several
inches from the bottom, the refined oil may be drawn into
a wooden tank placed in the basement, where it will sink
to a still lower temperature, and deposit a purer sediment
in the bottom of the tank. If the process has been con-
ducted with care, the refined oil will be perfectly clear,
and of a rich olive color. The price of this quality of oil

188 COTTON CULTURE.

before the war rated at from sixty to seventy-five cents
per gallon.

The ground seed, from which the oil has been expressed,
is known to commerce as " cotton-seed cake," and is con-
sumed principally in feeding cattle. It is classed by gen-
eral feeders with linseed cake, though chemists and scien-
tific dairymen claim for it a superiority. When fed to
milch cows, it increases the quantity and improves the
quality of the milk ; it is a rapid flesh former, and the
manure of the stock yard where cotton seed meal is fed
is of a very superior quality.

The following observations were made by Professor
Voelcker, of England, on the result of an analysis of sev-
eral specimens of thin decorticated American cotton-seed
cake:

1st. — The proportion of oil in all the specimens is higher
than in the best linseed cake, in which it is rarely more
than 12 per cent., and 10 per cent, may be taken as aver-
age. As a supplier of food, cotton-cake is therefore supe-
rior to linseed-cake.

2d. — The amount of oil in the several specimens differs
to the extent of 5-|- per cent. — say from No. 7, 13.50, to
No. 2, 19.19.

3d. — Decorticated cake contains a very high and much
larger percentage of flesh-forming matters than linseed-
cake, and it is therefore proper to give to young stock and
milch cows. The dung, also, is very valuable.

4th. — In comparison with linseed, there is much less
mucilage and other respiratory matter in cotton-cake.
This is compensated by the larger amount of oil.

5th. — The proportion of indigestible woody fibre in de-
corticated cotton-cake is very small, and not larger than
in the best linseed-cake!

6th, — And lastly, it may be observed that the ash of

COTTOX CULTURE. 189

cotton-cake is rich in bony materials, and amounts to
about the same quantity as is contained in other oily cakes.

Dairymen and stock feeders, in this country, where
corn and root vegetables are abundant and cheap, were
slow to try experiments, and hence could not be induced
to use the cotton-seed cake. The great bulk of it was
therefore shipped to Liverpool, England, where it found
ready sale at from forty to forty-seven dollars per ton.
Small quantities were fed in this country, and a few manu-
facturers of fertilizers used it to mix with other ingredients.

The cake can be ground into fine meal in a corn and cob
mill, and, in this state, if mixed with cut straw or corn
stalks and salted, makes a very superior feed for cattle.
This is the proper mode of treating it. The farmers and
planters in the South might thus, at small expense, convert
the corn stalks and cobs of their wide fields into stacks
and bins of forage, which, when made palatable to their
animals, and enriched by the addition of cotton-seed meal
and salt, would furnish ample supplies during the winter
and spring months, and save vast sums of money now
spent i n the purchase of hay and oats. At a low estimate, the
value of the cotton seed which hitherto has annually been
destroyed in the Southern States would have amounted
to not less than $7,000,000. This crude material might
be so transformed by simple processes as to greatly in-
crease its value, and supply to the country, hitherto im-
poverished by its destruction, just what it most needs.
If the discoveries which Mr. A. W. Harrison claims to
have made can become known and available to all soap-
makers, then, at no distant time, there will be made from
the cotton-seed the oils for ordinary uses, the soap for
family and toilet purposes ; the cake meal will supply good
forage for the plantation stock, and a superior fertilizer
for the soil ; and the ashes of the hulls burned under the
boilers, will yield a caustic solution, that can be used both
in refining the oil and in the manufacture of soap. All

190 COTTON CULTURE.

of these operations are exceedingly simple, and may be
performed, under the direction of a skillful superintendent,
by the ordinary laborers that are found in any of the
villages and cities in the country.

LIST OF

RURAL, BOOKS

PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY

OEANGE JUDD & CO.,
NO. 245 Broadway, NEW YOKK.

g^T Any Book on this list will be forwarded, post-paid, to
any address in the United States, (except those Territories reached
by the Overland California Mail only,) on receipt of the price.

Allen's (L. F.) Rural Architecture.. $1 50
Allen's (11. L.) American Farm Book 1 50
Allen's (R. L.) Diseases of Domestic

Animals 1 00

American Agricultural Annual,paper 50

" « cloth 75

American Horticaltural Annual,paper 50

" " " cloth 75

American Bird Fancier SO

American Pomology 300

American Rose Culturist 30

American Weeds and Useful Plants. 1 75

Bement's Rabbit Fancier 30

Bommer's Method of Making Manures 25

Bonssingault's Rural Economy 1 60

Breck's New Book of Flowers 175

Bnist's Flower Garden Directory. ... 1 50
Bnist's Family Kitchen Gardener... 1 00
Chorlton's Grape Grower's Guide. . . 75

Cobbett's American Gardener 75

Cole's (S. W.) American Fruit Book 75

Cole's Veterinarian 75

Copeland's Country Life, 8vo, cloth. 5 00
Cotton-Planter's Manual, (Turner).. 1 50
Dadd's (G. H.) Modern Horse Doctor 1 50

Dadd's American Cattle Doctor 1 50

Dana's Muck Manual 1 25

Do» and Gun, (Hooper's), paper.... 30

" cloth.... 60

Downine's Landscape Gardening. ... 6 50

Draining for Profit and Health 1 50

Eastwood on Cranberry 75

Elliott'sWestern Fruit Grower'sGuidel 50

Flax Culture .- 50

French's Farm Drainage 1 50

Field's (Thos. W.) Pear Culture 1 25

Fuller's Grape Culturist 1 50

Fuller's Small Fruit Culturist 1 50

Fuller's Strawberry Cnlturist 20

Gregory on Squash Culture 30

Guenon on Milch Cows 75

Henderson's Gardening for Profit. . . 1 50
Herbert's Hints to Horse-Keepers... 1 75

Hop Culture 40

Hoopes on Evergreens

Johnston's Agricultural Chemistry. . 1 75
Johnston's Elements of Agricultural

Chemistry 1 50

Leuchar's How to Build Hot-Houses 1 50

Miles on the Horse's Foot 75

Mohr on the Grape Vine 1 00

My Vineyard at Lakeview 1 25

Norton's Scientific Agricult ure 75

Onion Culture 20

Our Farm of Four Acres, paper 30

" cloth 60

Pardee on Strawberry Culture 75

Peat and its Uses 1 25

Pedder's Land Measurer 60

Quinby's Mysteries of Bee-Keeping. 1 50
Rural Annual, (Harris), 8 Nos. bound,

2vols each. 1 50

Randall's Sheep Husbandry 1 50

Randall's Fine Wool Sheep Husbandryl 00

Richardson on the Dog, paper 30

" cloth 60

Rivers' Miniature Fruit Garden 1 00

Saunders' Domestic Poultry, paper. . 40

" « - cloth.. 75

Schenck's Gardener's Tex. Book. ... 75

Skillful Housewife 75

Stewart's (John) Stable Book 1 50

Thompson's Food of Animals 1 00

Tobacco Culture 25

Warder's Hedges and Evergreens. . . 1 50
Youatt and Spooner on the Horse. . '. 1 50

Youatt and Martin on Cattle 1 50

Youatt on the Hog 1 00

Youatt on Sheep 1 00

Break's New Book of Flowers.

BY JOSEPH BRECK,

P1UCTIOAL HORTICULTURIST.

BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED.

This work, while preserving scientific accuracy, is written in a familial
style, and with the enthusiasm of a life-long lover of flowers.

The lessons of a practical acquaintance with the subject are plainly
given, and though the author is never dry, his teachings are full of

PRACTICAL COMMON SENSE.

ALL DEPARTMENTS OF OUT-DOOR GARDEBTUSTO

*re treated, and the work really condenses into one volume what is in
many cases distributed through several treatises on Bulbs, Annuals, Roses, etc.

Bulbs. The cultivation of bulbs, whether in- doors or in the open
ground, is clearly described, and such instructions are given as will insure
success with these favorite plants.

Annuals. All the finer annuals are described, and the peculiar
treatment necessary for each given in full.

Herbaceous Perennials. This justly favorite class of plants
is given here more at length than in any work with which we are acquainted.

Bedding Plants. The treatment of the popular kinds of bed-
ding plants is given, together with that of Dahlias, Chrysanthemums, and
Buch as usually fall under the head of florist's flowers.

Flowering Shrubs. A separate section is devoted to the hardy
flowering shrubs, including a very full chapter upon the Rose.

We have no work which is so safe a guide to the novice in gardening,
or that imparts the necessary information in a style so free from techni-
calities. Not the least interesting part of the work is the author's personal
experience, as he tells not only how he succeeded, but the mistakes ha
committed. Thus far it is

"THE BOOK OF FLOWERS."
Sent post-paid. Price, $1.75.

ORANGE JUDD & CO.,

Broadway.

AMERICAN POMOLOGY.
APPLES.

ISy IDoct. JOHN A..

PRESIDENT OHIO POMOLOGICAL SOCIETT; VICE-PEBSEDEXT AXXBICAN POXOLOGICA&

SOCIETY.

298 ILLUSTRATIONS.

This volume has about 750 pages, the first 375 of which are de
voted to the discussion of the general subjects of propagation, nur.
eery culture, selection and planting, cultivation of orchards, care of
fruit, insects, and the like ; the remainder is occupied with descrip-
tions of apples. With the richness of material at hand, the trouble
was to decide what to leave out. It will be found that while the
old and standard varieties are not neglected, the new and promising
sorts, especially those of the South and West, have prominence.
A list of selections for different localities by eminent orchardists is
a valuable portion of the volume, while the Analytical Index or
Catalogue Raisonne, as the French would say, is the most extended
American fruit list ever published, and gives evidence of a fearful
amount of labor.

CONTENTS.

Chapter I.— INTRODUCTORY.

Chapter II.— HISTORY OF THE APPLE.

Chapter III.— PROPAGATION.

Buds and Cuttings— Grafting— Budding— The Nursery.

Chapter IV.— DWARFING.

Chapter V — DISEASES.

Chapter VI THE SITE FOR AN ORCHARD.

Chapter VII — PREPARATION OF SOIL FOR AN ORCHARD.

Chapter VIII.— SELECTION AND PLANTING.

Chapter IX.— CULTURE, Etc.

Chapter X.— PHILOSOPHY OF PRUNING.

Chapter XI — THINNING.

Chapter XII.-RIPENING AND PRESERVING FRUITS.

Chapter XIII and XIV.— INSECTS.

Chapter XV— CHARACTERS OF FRUITS AND THEIR
VALUE— TERMS USED.

Chapter XVI.— CLASSIFICATION.

Necessity for— Basis of— Characters— Shape— Its Regu-
larity—Flavor— Color— Their several Values, etc. De-
scription of Apples.

Chapter XVH.— FRUIT LISTS— CATALOGUE AND INDEX OF
FRUITS.

Sent Post-Pail Price $3,00,

ORANGE JTTDD & CO., 245 Broadway, New-York.

GARDENING FOR PROFIT,

In the Market and. Family Garden,

BY PETER HENDERSON.

This is the first work on Market Gardening ever published in this
country. Its author is well known as a market gardener of eighteen
years' successful experience. In this work he has recorded this
experience, and given, without reservation, the methods necessary
to the profitable culture of the commercial or

It is a work for which there has long been a demand, and one
which will commend itself, not only to those who grow vegetables
for sale, but to the cultivator of the

FAMILY GAKDEN,

to whom it presents methods quite different from the old ones gen-
erally practiced. It is an ORIGINAL AND PURELY AMERICAN work, and
not made up, as books on gardening too often are, by quotations
from foreign authors.

Every thing is made perfectly plain, and the subject treated in all
its details, from the selection of the soil to preparing the products
for market.

CONTENTS.

Men fitted for the Business of Gardening.

The Amount of Capital Required, and

"Working Force per Acre.

Profits of Market Gardening.

Location, Situation, and Laying Out.

Soils, Drainage, and Preparation.

Manures, Implements.

"Uses and Management of Cold Frames.

Formation and Management of Hot-beds.

Forcing Pits or Green-houses.

Seeds and Seed Raising.

How, "When, and Where to Sow Seeds.

Transplanting, Insects.

Packing of Vegetables for Shipping.

Preservation of Vegetables in "Winter.

Vegetables, their Varieties and Cultivation.

In the last chapter, the most valuable kinds are described, and
the culture proper to each is given in detail.

Sent post-paid, price $I.5O.
OBANGE JUDD & CO., 245 Broadway, New-York.

DRAINING FOR PROFIT,

AND

DRAINING FOR HEALTH.

BY

GEO. E. WARING, JB.,

ENGINEER OF THE DRAINAGE OF THE CENTRAL PAUK, NEW- YORK.

"EVERY KEPORTED CASE OF FAILURE IK DRAINAGE WHICH WE HAVE INVESTI-
GATED, HAS RESOLVED ITSELF INTO IGNORANCE, BLUNDERING, BAD MANAGEMENT,

OB BAD EXECUTION."— Gtsborne.

I L L T J S T ft, A. T EJ ID .

CONTENTS:

Chapter I.— L.AND TO BE DRAINED AND THE REASONS

WHY.
Chapter II.-KOW DRAINS ACT, AND HOW THEY AFFECT

THE SOIL..
Chapter III.- HOW TO GO TO WORK TO JL.AY OUT A

SYSTEM OF DRAINS.

Chapter IV.- HOW TO MAKE THE DRAINS.
Chapter V.— HOW TO TAKE CARE OF DRAINS AND

DRAINED IjANDS.

Chapter VI.- WHAT DRAINING COSTS.
Chapter VII. -WILL IT PAY!

Chapter VIII.— HOW TO MAKE DRAINING TILES.
Chapter IX.-THE RECLAIMING OF SAI/T MARSHES.
Chapter X.— MALARIAL DISEASES.
Chapter XI.-HOUSE AND TOWN DRAINAGE.

Sent post-paid. Price $1.50.

NEW-YORK:

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THE

BT

ANDEEW S. FULLEE.

NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION.

THE STANDARD WORK

ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE HARDY GRAPE,

AS IT NOT ONLY DISCUSSES PRINCIPLES,

BUT

ILLUSTRATES PRACTICE.

Every tiling is made perfectly plain, and. its teach-
ings may toe followed upon

ONE VINE OB A VINEYARD

The following are some of the tojncs that are treated:

GROWING NEW VARIETIES FROM SEED.

PROPAGATION BY SINGLE BUDS OR EYES.

PROPAGATING HOUSES AND THEIR MANAGEMENT FULLY DESCRIBED.

How TO GROW.

CUTTINGS IN OPEN AIR, AND now TO MAKE LAYERS.

GRAFTING THE GRAPE — A SIMPLE AND SUCCESSFUL METHOD.

HYBRIDIZING AND CROSSING — MODE OF OPERATION.

SOIL AND SITUATION — PLANTING AND CULTIVATION.

PRUNING, TRAINING, AND TRELLISES— ALL THE SYSTEMS EXPLAINED.

GARDEN CULTURE— How TO GROW VINES IN A DOOR-YARD.

INSECTS, MILDEW, SUN-SCALD, AND OTHER TROUBLES.

DESCRIPTION OF THE VALUABLE AND THE DISCARDED VARIETIES.

Sent post-paid. Price $1.50.

Orange .lucid <fc Co., 24:5 Broadway.

THE

SMALL FRUIT CULTURIST.

BY

ANDREW S. FULLER.
Beautifully Illustrated.

We liave heretofore had no work especially devoted to small
fruits, and certainly no treatises anywhere that give the information
contained in this. It is to the advantage of special works that the
author can say all that he has to say on any subject, and not be
restricted as to space, as he must be in those works that cover tho
culture of all fruits— great and small.

This book covers the whole ground of Propagating Small Fruits,
their Culture, Varieties, Packing for Market, etc. While very full on
the other fruits, the Currants and Raspberries have been more care-,
fully elaborated than ever before, and in this important part of his
book, the author has had the invaluable counsel of Charles Downing.
The chapter on gathering and packing the fruit is a valuable one,
and in it are figured all the baskets and boxes now in common use.
The book is very finely and thoroughly illustrated, and makes an
admirable companion to the Grape Culturist, by the same author.

OO3VTE1VTS:

CHAP. I. BARBERRY. CHAP. VII. GOOSEBERRY.

CHAP. II. STRAWBERRY. CHAP. VIII. CORNELIAN CHERRY.

CHAP. III. RASPBERRY. CHAP. IX. CRANBERRY.

CHAP. IV. BLACKBERRY. CHAP. X. HUCKLEBERRY.

CHAP. V. DWARF CHERRY. CHAP. XL SHEPERDIA.

CHAP. VL CURRANT. CHAP. XII. PREPARATION FOP,

GATHERING FRUIT.

Sent post-paid. Price $1.50.
ORANGE JUDD & CO., 245 Broadway, New- York.

The Miniature Fruit Garden;

OR,

THE CULTURE OF PYRAMIDAL AND BUSH FRUIT TREES,

BY THOMAS RIVERS.

ILLUSTRATED.

MR. RIVERS is one of the oldest and best known of the English nursery-
men and orchardists. The popularity that his work has attained in Eng-
land is shown by the fact that our reprint is from the Thirteenth London
Edition. This treatise is mainly devoted to

Dwarf Apples and Pcar§.

Nothing is more gratifying than the cultivation of dwarf fruit trees, and
this work tells how to do it successfully. These miniature trees are beauti-
ful ornaments, besides being useful in giving abundant crops of fruit ; they
can be grown in

Small Oarden§ and City Yards,

and be removed without injury, almost as readily as a piece of furniture.
The work also gives the manner of training upon walls and trellises.

Root Pruning

is fully explained, and various methods of protection from frosts are given.
Dwarf Cherries and Plums

are treated of as are other dwarf trees. Directions are also given for
growing

Figs and Filberts.

While written for the climate of England, its suggestions are valuable
everywhere, and no one who grows dwarf trees should be without this little
work, in which is condensed the whole practice of the author, and which,
like all his writings, bears the marks of long experience in the practice of.
fruit growing.

SENT POST PAID. PRICE, $1.

;

ORANGE JUDD &. CO., 245 Broadway.

COPELAND'S COUNTRY LIFE.

A COMPENDIUM

Of

Agricultural and Horticultural

PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE.

Beautifully Illustrated.

It contains Descriptions, Hints, Suggestions, and Details of great value to
every one interested in Fruit, Flowers, Vegetables, or Farm Crops. It con-
tains 926 large Octavo Pages, and 25O Engravings. Describing and Il-
lustrating nearly the whole range of topics of 'interest to the FARMER, the
GARDENER, the FRUIT CULTURIST, and the AMATEUR.

It is adapted not only to those owning large and Elegant Estates, but con-
tains directions for the best arrangement of the smallest Plots, down to the
City Yard, the Roof or Window Garden, or the simple Flower Stand. It
also gives an abstract of the Principles, Construetion, and Management of
AQUARIUMS. Among numerous other matters it treats of

Draining, Giving best methods, estimates of cost, trenches, tiles, etc.,
thus enabling almost any one properly to perform this important work.

Cattle are carefully noticed with reference to the special merits of dif-
ferent breeds for dairying or fattening.

Sheep Management, including Breeding, Feeding, Prices, Profits,
etc., receives attention, and a very full treatise on the Merinos is given.

Grape Culture occupies a large space, embracing the opinions of
men ia all parts of the country, as to best sorts, planting, training, diseases,
and general management for home use or marketing.

Full L.i§tS of Ornamental Trees and Shrubs, Fruits, Flowers, Green
and Hot-house Plants, etc., are given, with directions for management each
month in the year.

The Kitchen Garden receives particular attention, with icfer-
ence to the best way to grow and preserve each kind of Vegetable.

In short, as its name indicates, the book treats of almost every subject that
needs consideration by those living in the country, or having any thing to do
with the cultivation of the soil.

. . OPirioe, SS.OO.
N E W-Y O R K :
Oirang-e Ju<l<l &, Oo.,

MY VINEYARD AT LAKEVIEW;

OR,

SUCCESSFUL GRAPE CULTURE.

BY A WESTERN GRAPE GROWER.

ILLUSTRATED.

To any one who wishes to grow grapes, whether a single vine or a vine-
yard, this book is full of valuable teachings. The author gives not only his
success, but, what is of quite as much importance, his failure. It tells just
what the beginner in grape culture wishes to know, with the charm that
always attends the relation of personal experience.

It is especially valuable as giving an account of the processes actually
followed in

CELEBRATED GRAPE REGIONS

in Western New-York and on the shores and islands of Lake Erie.

This book is noticed by a writer in the Horticulturist for August last aa
follows : " Two works very different in character and value have just been
published, and seem to demand a passing notice. The better and less pre-
tentious of the two is ' Mr VINEYARD AT LAKEVIEW,' a charming little book
that professes to give the actual experience of a western grape grower, de-
tailing not only his successes, but his blunders and failures. It is written
in a pleasant style, without any attempt at display, and contains much ad-
vice that will prove useful to a beginner — the more useful because derived
from the experience of a man who had no leisure for fanciful experiments,
but has been obliged to make his vineyard support himself and his family."

Written in a simple and attractive style, and relating the experience of one who fe'.t
Ms way along into the successful cultivation of a vineyard in Ohio. — Mass. Ploughman.

It is the experience of a practical grape grower, and not the theory of an experi-
menter.—-Bath Daily Sentinel and Times.

It has no superior as an attractive narrative of country life. — Hartford Daily Post.

Many books have been written on the grape, but this is the only work that gives an
account of grape growing as actually practiced at the successful vineyards in the grape
region of the West, and will be welcomed by a large class of readers. — New-Bedford
Standard.

This little volume contains, in an attractive form, and in clear and concise language,
just the information needed to enable any one to become thoroughly posted up in this
delightful and profitable branch of horticulture.— Vermont Farmer.

Just the manual for a beginner, by one who says "he is well rewarded in the success
attained." Adding, "It might have been reached in half the time, had I possessed the
knowledge imparted to the reader of this book.' • -Boston Cultivator.

Sent Post-paid Price, $1.50.
ORANGE JUDD &. CO., 245 Broadway, New-York.

Downing's Landscape Gardening and Rural
Architecture,

Price, $6.50.

The most complete and valuable work ever issued on Landscape Gardening In
North- Am erica, for the Improvement of Country Residences; containing full Direc-
tions for every tiling connected with Laying out and adorning the Rural Home, tiie
Grounds, the Gardens, the Buildings, the Trees and Plants, etc., with principles of
taste so stated as to adapt the work to all classes. Splendidly Illustrated with many
Steel and line Wood Engravings. By the late A. J. DOWNING. New Edition, En-
larged, Xewly Illustrated and Revised, with Supplement, by HENBY WINTHBOP SAB-
GXNT. Octavo, 534 pp. Extra cloth, gilt, beveled boards.

This Edition contains a Splendid new portrait on Steel, of Mr. DOWNING.

HORSES.

Herbert's Hints to Horse-Keepers, - - - (New Edition.)

Price, $1.75.

This Is the best practical work on the Horse, prepared m this country. A COMPLKT*
MANUAL for HORSEMEN, embracing: How to Breed a Horse; How to Buy a Horse;
How to Break a Horse; How to Use a Horse; How to Feed a Horse; How to Physic a
Horse (Allopathy or Homoeopathy) ; How to Groom a Horse ; How to Drive a Horse ;
How to Ride a Horse, etc., and Chapters on MCLES and PONIES, etc. By the late
HENRY WILLIAM HERBEET (Frank Forrester). Beautifully Illustrated throughout.
Cloth, l^ino., 4'£> pp.

BEES.

Quinby's Mysteries of Bee-Keeping Explained.

Price, $1.50.

Newly written throughout, containing the results of thirty-five years of successful
experience. with/i/H, plain, and practical Directions for all details of JJee Culture;
including also a Description and Manner of Using the Movable Comb and Box Hives,
with the most approved modes of Propagating and Treating the Italian Bee, etc., «tc..
with numerous Illustrations, By M. QCINBY, Practical Bee-Keeper.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY

ORANGE JUDD & CO

THE AMERICAN

FOR 1868.

A. Y ear-Book
Wanted by Everybody.

This volume is now ready, and contains much of interest to
every agriculturist. Besides the general record of agricultural
progress, it has a valuable article on

Factory Dairy Practice,

By GARDNER B. WEEKS, Esq., Secretary of the American Dairy-
men's Association, in which he discusses the reasons for the best
practice and the most approved apparatus, buildings, etc., fully il-
lustrated, and is equally interesting to the practical dairyman and
to the novice.

Sewers and Eartli-CIosets

In their relations to Agriculture, by Col. GEO. E. WARING, Jr.
Winter Wheat,

Describing, with engravings, new and valuable varieties by JOSEPH
HARRIS and JOHN JOHNSTON ; an article upon

Scytnes and Cradles,

By JOHN W. DOTTGLAS, (fully illustrated ;) also articles on Horse-
Breaking and on Bitting Colts, by SAM'L F. HEADLT, Esq., (il-
lustrated;) on Recent Progress in Agricultural Science, by Prof
S. W. JOHNSON ; on Commercial Fertilizers, Veterinary Medicine
and Jurisprudence, Progress of Invention Affecting Agriculture,
Valuable Tables for Farmers and others, etc.

It is intended that the work shall be practical, excellent in the
beauty of its illustrations, and in its adaptation to the wants of
American Farmers, superior to anything of the kind heretofore
published.

In its general features it is like the Agricultural Annual for 1887,
containing an Almanac and Calendar, and there will be added a
list of dealers in Agricultural Implements, Seeds, etc. Sent post-
paid. Price, fancy paper covers, 50 cts. ; cloth, 75 cts.

ORANGE JTJDD & CO.,

245 Broadway, New-York.

THE AMERICAN

FOR 1868.

.A. Year-Book

FOR EVERY HOME.

The second number of this serial is now ready. It contains a
popular record of horticultural progress during the past year,
besides valuable articles from

EMINENT HORTICULTURISTS.

Among those who contributed to its pages are

HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER,
PETER HENDERSON,
THOMAS MEEHAN,
JOSIAH HOOPES,
WM. S. CARPENTER,
GEORGE W. CAMPBELL,
DOCTOR VAN KETJREN,

DOCTOR JOHN A. WARDEB,
S. B. PARSONS,
JAS. J. H. GREGORY,
GEORGE SUCH,
ANDREW S. FULLER,
JOHN SAUL,
JAMES VICE,

and other well-known pomological and floricultural writers.

The engravings, which have been prepared expressly for the
work, are numerous, and make it the

MOST BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED

work of its kind ever published in this or any other country. It
contains Tables, Lists of Nurserymen, Seedsmen, and Florists, and
other useful matters of reference. Sent post-paid. Price, fancy
paper covers, 50 cts ; cloth, 75 cts.

ORANGE JTJDD & CO.,

245 Broadway, New- York.

Q [Established In 1842.]

A Good, Cheap, and very Valuable Paper
Every Man, Woman and Child,

IN CITY, VILLAGE and COUNTRY,

THE

AMERICA! AGRICULTURIST,

FOR THE

FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD,

Including a Special Department of Interesting and

Instructive Reading for CHILDREN and YOUTH.

The Agriculturist is a largo periodical of T7iirty-two pages, quarto, not octavo,
beautifully printed, and filled with plain, practical, reliable, original matter, includ-
ing hundreds of beautiful and instructive Engravings iu every annual volume.

It contains each month a Calendar of Operations to be performed on the Farm,
In the Orchard and Garden, in and around the Dwelling, etc.

The thousands of hints and suggestions given in every volume are prepared by prac-
tical, intelligent working men, who know what they talk and write about. The
articles are thoroughly edited, and every way reliable.

The Household Department Is valuable to every Housekeeper, affording
very many useful hints and directions calculated to lighten and facilitate in-door work.

The Department for Children and Youth, is prepared with special care
not only to amuse, but also to inculcate knowledge and sound moral principles.

Terms*— The circulation of the American Agriculturist, (about 15O,OOO) is so
large that it can be furnished at the low price of $1.50 a year ; four copies, one year, for
$5; ten copies, one year, for $12; twenty or more copies, one year. $1 each; single
copies, 15 ceats each. An extra copy to the one furnishing a club of ten or twenty.

IT A.

ORANGE JUDD & CO.,

Publishers & Proprietors,
'^No. 245 Broadway, New- York City.^

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

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