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AKDS y 
 
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 TATES. 
 
 ;ni .vrnnU-rll.v.T ^R.M•?Ll■Uau So Bcebu.nn Sir. 
 
COTTON CULTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 ^X 
 
 JOSEPH B/ LYMAN, 
 
 LATE OF LOUISIANA. 
 
 WITH AN ADDITIONAL CHAPTER ON 
 
 COTTON SEED AND ITS USES. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. R. S7.PHER. 
 
 v'" " ' -■',■ 
 
 i' A; / 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ORANGE JUDD & COMPANY 
 
 245 BROADWAY. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year IbW, oy 
 
 ORANGE JUDD & CO. 
 
 At the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New-York. 
 
 
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 
 Avrote 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. 
 
A TREATISE ON COTTON CnLTUIffi. 
 
 TABLE OF COIVTEIS'TS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 WHERE AKD 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 LAB0EER3 
 
 The Climate for Cotton. Geographical Boundaries of the Cotton Zone. 
 Soils Best Suited to Cotton Growing. Draft Animals Required by the 
 Planter. Plows, Wagons, Laborers, Milk p.p. 9 — 16 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PREPARATION OF THE SOIL AND PLANTING. 
 
 Time for Plowing ; Manner of Plowing. Laying-ofT 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. 
 
 now 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 Cot- 
 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. 33—35 
 
 4 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. V 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COTTON PICKING. 
 
 Time of Commencing. Utensils and Preparation. Picking Must be 
 Done Mainly by Hand. Slow and Fust 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 Uugiuned Cotton p.p. 36—45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GINNING, BALING, ANO 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' CALENDAR. 
 
 January. — The Gin ; the Market; Pressing. Clearing off the Fields. 
 Filling up Washes and Gulches. Talcing 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. 
 
 Ifarch-^—ThQ Garden ; Kelons ; 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 
 Cottou Rows ; the Sweep ; Importance of Good Plowing. 
 
 June. — Cultivation Vai'ies 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. 
 
 Se2ytemher.—T\ic Picking to be Pushed ; Care for the Hands ; Coffee iu 
 the Morning. 
 
 October. — Keeping up the Spirits ; Sorting Cotton ; the Trasher. 
 
VI COTTON CULTUKE. 
 
 Nmeniber.—Kxo'A Night Work ; Giauing ; Cotton Shonlcl Lie for a 
 Time in the Seed. 
 
 Decetnher. — Gathering of other Crops ; Hauling Cotton to Market ; 
 Clearing the Fields for the following Crop p. p. 59—68 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 QUALITT, EXTENT, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COTTON LANDS 
 OF IfORTH 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 Caue 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 1863 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, and 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 
 Shin ; 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 Ditcliing ; 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 Manvire for Cotton Lauds : Guano. Cotton 
 Should not be Manured in the Drill. Dr. Cloud and his Improved Cul- 
 ture. Reasons for not Maniiring in the Hill. "High Farming" in 
 Connection with Cottou ; what it Consists in. The proper Rotation of 
 Crops on a Cottou 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. Improvement 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 Cottou ; 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—133 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 now 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 Euterprise. The Plan Proposed Adapted to 
 the Small Producer. Question of Operatives p.p. 133 — 141 
 
VIII COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF THE VAJLTJE Or COTTON AS A PLANT, AND THE USES TO WHICH 
 IT MAT BE APPLIED. 
 
 Cheapness of Cotton as au Article of Clothing. Cotton for Ropes ; 
 as a Material for Beds ; as a Material for Bed-Covers ; Cotton Blankets. 
 The Comforts that Two Bales of Cotton may be Made to Bring into One 
 Family. The Possible Employment of Cotton as a Building Material. 
 Cotton-stalli 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 DisadA'an- 
 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 Hullcrs. 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. 180—190 
 
A TREATISE ON COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 WHEKE 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 aifords 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 westAvard 
 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 upi>er 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 OAvay 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 wbich 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 pecuhar climate of the Cotton States I understand 
 to be produced by the chain of mountains which intersects 
 our country, the loAver spurs of the Alleghany range 
 passing oif 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 droutl), 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 j^art 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, v.'C come into 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 11 
 
 a region quite fovorable to its growth, and in the section 
 lying between the Tennessee and Cumberland, and drained 
 by the Duck and Elk rivei-s, 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 uot 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 COTTOISr CULTURE. 
 
 preceding the war, tliere 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 w^ith 
 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 of fences. 
 
 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 
 liundred. 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 
 raluable class of cotton lands. Like river bottoms every- 
 ?vhere, the valleys of the Santee, the Chattahoochee, the 
 A.labama and Tombigbee, the Pearl, and, beyond all, the 
 rast areas drained by the Mississippi and its lower tribut- 
 aries have very little inclination, and that little is gener- 
 
COITON CULTURE. 13 
 
 ally away from the bank rather than towards the stream. 
 But the soil is admirably adapted to cotton and the mader- 
 drain is such as to compensate for the flatness. Successive 
 overflows have 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, wdth, in many places, a thick under- 
 gi'owth of cane. The labor of clearing, and the vegetable 
 miasms of swamp lands, render them less desirable for per- 
 manent residence than the two classes above described, but 
 tbeir 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 di-aft 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 xoalk 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 
 tliey 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 plovvs is meant those which make a light 
 furrow, and their form will be discussed in a following 
 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 giu 
 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-Avheeled wagon 
 will sufiicc for the hauling of a place such as wc suppose. 
 
COTTON 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 corn 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 j^ckuig season, it is very desirable to 
 put two or three more hands into the field. If your land 
 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 liand is always good work. In employing 
 laborers, regard should be had chiefly to their capacity as 
 cotton pickers, and here the diiference is astonishing. Two 
 men will Avork together all the year, a match for each otiier 
 in chopping, splitting rails, plowing, lioeing 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 m.otions, 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 eight inches, 
 
16 COTTON CULTUEE. 
 
 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 Vicksburg, 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, 
 aud 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 hght 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 COTTOX 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 pai'lance, 
 by throwing iip 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 
 tlie covn-se of cultivating the crojD. On lands that have 
 been thoroughly cultivated, this omission is probably im- 
 material. At any rate, tbe very best of crops are produced 
 year after year by this luethod. 
 
 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 loAver margin of the cotton 
 belt, and may be delayed as late as the tenth or twentieth 
 of April, in the latitude of I^ashville. 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 flivorable 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 difierent kinds of seed, 
 whose respective merits are discussed among jjlanters, are 
 fully treated of in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 The two grand divisions of cotton in the United States 
 ai*e 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 CULTURE. 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 
 tlie 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 18G6 from the difficulty of ob- 
 taining good seed. That first planted filled 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 first. There is nothing in the 
 nature of the plant that should make seed two or more 
 years old worthless, except the increasing probabiUty 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 harroAV 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 farrow straight, that they send a good hoe hand 
 to draAV 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 blnnt 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 upon, as re- 
 presented in Fig. 1. 
 
 ■ -i_r- 
 
 -2^ 
 
 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 doAv^n, so as to make a narrow, smooth trench 
 
COTTON" CULTURE. 21 
 
 for the seeds, and thus ensitre a straight Hne 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 jDlants 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 i^lants 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, Avliich 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 hj a harrow, and sometimes by a 
 board fastened to the lower part of a light plow. This 
 board shonld be made of some hard wood, as oak or gvim, 
 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 jjer- 
 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- 
 tihzer that will hasten the gemnination. 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 CULTURK 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. lu this case it is a good plan to pass lightly 
 over the beds with a harrow, taldng care to draw up the 
 teeth so as only to scratch the surface and crumble this 
 crust. This is more important iu swamp land than on the 
 hills. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW THE CROP IS TO BE CULTIVATED 
 
 In 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 tho 
 
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 Avas 
 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 j^lants, and con- 
 centrate all the fertilizing powers of the soil upon the most 
 thrifty specimens. The usual practice is to "run aroimd 
 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 dejiends upon the skill of the plowman. By keep- 
 ing a firm grasj) 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 " choi^ping 
 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 aaost exactly in line. 
 As a rule, it does not i^ay to be very particular this time 
 over the crojD. 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" CULTURE. 25 
 
 It may Ibe here remarked that rapid movement, and a 
 handhng 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, 
 and 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 
 plantmg 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 climip, 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 croj) 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 
 yeUow 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 riin until the middles are all broken oxit ; but here 
 2 
 
26 COTTOK CULTUEE. 
 
 it may be remarked that the cultivation varies Avitli 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 cany a light ploAV 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 j^low 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 form 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 pai't of this treatise, and all that need be said 
 here is that brisk working is almost the only remedy in 
 the planter's j^ower. 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 ixsed 
 in cultivating a crop of cotton, there is much variety of 
 
COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 opinion, as well as much room for imjjrovement. The 
 ordinary light Avooden 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 brolaen out, it is clear that some 
 form of imjjlement Avhich 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 wincrs to the side of the common scooter or bull 
 
 Fig. 3. — 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 
 
 COTTON CULTURE, 
 
 in tlie 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 Ibed 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 thousxh the weeds and sri'ass are 
 
 COTTON FLOWEK. — {Sea Inland.) 
 
 subdued. During June and the early part of July it is 
 important to press the growth of the plant, and nothing 
 does this so eifectively as frequent stirring of the soil. 
 As a rule, the jilanter 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 uncommojily wet. 
 
 In a favorable season, once in three weeks will suffice. 
 A fovorable 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 jDlanted 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 
 tliat 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. 
 At first they are somewhat angular in shape, and the en- 
 veloping leaf forms a sort of tuft or rufile at the base. As it 
 swells, the lines grow rounder, though it never becomes 
 
 THE BOLL NEARLY KIPE. 
 
30 COTTON CULTUKK. 
 
 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 ofi* 
 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 har off; that is, run 
 a light plow close to the young plants, cutting av/ay the 
 grass, and throwing dirt from the row. The hoes follow 
 and chop oiit^ leaving clumps of five or six plants a foot 
 and a half apart. 
 
 Second. — Ten days or two weeks after, mould or dirt 
 
COTTONS CULTURE. 31 
 
 the cottou ; that is, let the plows throw the mould up to 
 the i-ow, the hoes to follow thinnuig 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 
 jnainly 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 
 was very much modified. For instance, a planter near a 
 great river may be occupied during April and a pai*t 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 tlius thorough, the subsequent Avorkings 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 ofl" 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 Avorkings 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 chapiter, 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, it requires 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 sj)ace of about six inches 
 between them. It should be drawn by two 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 cultiA^ator, 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 w^hich 
 promises well, though as yet it has been tested by but 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 few cotton growers. Those who have used this speak 
 emi^hatically 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, C, with a shaft or axle running through 
 its centre, to which the v/heels are attached, and the re- 
 A'olving movement keeps the seed constantly in motion. 
 It is distributed evenly, or properly separated in the row, 
 
 5 — ingeksoit's E^voITI^G cottonseed planter 
 Ritented June 25th, 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 Avhen necessary to clear away 
 stalks, vines, etc., on the surface. 
 
 The furring-wheel, J'^ marks the ground more or less 
 deep where the seed is to fall. 
 
COTTOK CULTURE. 
 
 The drag-bar, Z>, has two adjustable covering shares, 
 -S _B, which will run over obstructions without catching, 
 and cover the seed well and evenly. 
 
 The lever, S, 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 j^lanted 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. 
 
 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 Palmvra, N. Y., and 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 35 
 
 ■\Yas put ui^on the market in 18G0, 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, tliough 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 croj), 
 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. 
 
oQ COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 COTTON PICKING. 
 
 Early in August the fortunate and enterprising planter 
 will walk in fi-om a survey of liis 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 suck, 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 httle finger, sewed all around the top on the outside, 
 helps keep the bag open. The length of tlie strap and 
 depth of the bag should be carefully adjusted to the size 
 and figure of the laborer, for the planter can ill afibrd 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 CULTUFvj:. 
 
 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 nciglibor. 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 
 tlic variety chiefly cultivated in this country, when fully 
 mature, opens its burr or shell quite wide, and the mass of 
 cotton within gradually fiills outward, and droops by the 
 weight of the seeds. At some periods of the picking sea- 
 
38 COTTOX CULTUEE. 
 
 son, for instance duriug tlie mouth 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 
 sliows itself in such abundance as fairly to whiten the field, 
 but let the skeptic or the grumbler take a bag on his 
 shouldei-, 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 efiect 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 compositoi-. 
 There is a knack in cotton picking as in type setting, which 
 cannot be acquired by all. Women generally make the 
 fastest i^ickers, 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 
 
COTTOjST cultuee. 39 
 
 of the field and back, they may gather twenty-five pounds 
 in the outward trip. 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 fost 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. ISTothing 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 COTTOJf CULTURE. 
 
 tical,) must suggest variovis cheap and harmless modes of 
 relieving the tedium of tins kind of labor. Fo: instance, 
 let there be refreshments at the baskets, a dish of hot 
 coffee in a cool morning, or a JDail 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 Avill sj)ring 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 SeiDtember, and much more so in October, and the fol- 
 lowing months of autumn, tlie dews are heavy and cold. 
 
COTTOISr CULTUKE. 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 decHnes 
 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 j^ound of cui'e. 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 boihng before sunrise. Give each hand a half pint 
 of it, and with it a hard cracker, a roast potato, or a jiiece 
 of bread. Then, at eight, provide breakfast. Let the 
 Avork 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 handUng, 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, diifering very little 
 in appearance,) will naturally class into four grades, as it 
 comes fi-om 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 Se^itember and October, there is 
 no need of having much trashy or dirty cotton. That which 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 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 Avith 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 diiference 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 j)ound. 
 
 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 two 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. Wlierc the num- 
 
44 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 ber 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 w^here 
 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 Geoi'gia 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 Ibale of the usual weight. 
 Ten good hands can i^ick 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 V. 
 
 GINNING, BALING AND MARKETING. 
 
 In detailing, step by step, the 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 j^icking 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 siinny 
 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 done, 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 
 sujDposed 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 COTTOX CULTURE, 
 
 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 j^ermanence 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 Avell, 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 
 
COTTOX 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 raj^idly, 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 way 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 in-oduced 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 geai'ing gives 
 sufficient rapidity of motion to the drum, from w^hich a 
 band passes directly to the gui. 
 
48 
 
 COTTOIir CULTURE. 
 
 A aud ^ 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 h, 
 which pull around in the dotted path. At the south end 
 of the building, ;S' represents an iron screw Avorking in a 
 strong frame, and driven upward hj a mule, m, towards 
 JP, the packing-box, whicli opens in the second storj. 
 
 G, in this story, (Fig. 9,) is the gin, which discharges gin- 
 ned cotton into Jj the lint room, where it is picked up by the 
 
 ;;,:: 
 
 '.'-'- 
 
 
 ~'~- 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 \1 
 
 
 V 
 
 -©^ 
 
 
 / 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 ©'" 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 B 
 
 M 
 
 
 1 IllllllijII llllllllllll 
 
 W 
 
 
 W 
 
 G 
 / \ 
 
 — 
 
 L 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 i: :i 
 
 
 W w 
 
 
 Fig. 
 
 Fig. 
 
 armful, and thrown into the packing-box; W, W, W, W, 
 are windows, so placed as to throw strong light on G, the 
 gin, and P, the press ; the short lines, M, 3f, 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 
 
COTTO?^ CULTURE. 49 
 
 field will be damp, not to say wet, and much of that which 
 was picked dry, and has been stored in cribs or sheds, will 
 be too damp for the gin. 
 
 The rule is that no cotton is fit to gin unless the seed 
 snaps brittle between the teeth. Hence a necessary accom- 
 paniment of every gin is a scaffolding, more or less exten- 
 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 tlie Cotton States, what with tlje * 
 heavy dews, frequent rains, and late j^icking, 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-hoiise. 
 
 The side view, presented on tlie 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 imder, 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 shoiild be roofed with some 
 3 
 
50 
 
 COTTON CULTUEE. 
 
 material as tin tlaixt Las been sanded, or felt roofing covered 
 with gravel, so as not to become slippery, Avhicli would be 
 the case with shingles or boards. The shelter beneath this 
 scafibldino- afibrds 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 scafibld, 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 jjole 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 fi'om the field to hurry 
 the cotton under shelter, two hands can take hold of the 
 opposite ends of the canvass pole, and in two minutes 
 have everything on the scafibld 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 
 
COTTOJT CULTURE. 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-foui'ths 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 (iould have been avoided 
 by sending the cotton to market in compact, squai*e bales, 
 thoroughly pressed, and well bound. Suppose, for in- 
 stance, a cotton grower, in some part of the Mississippi 
 Valley, produ^ces 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 ojjeration. 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 hydraxilic press. The patentees of several of 
 the improved hay and cotton-presses in use throughout 
 the Northern States, will agi-ee for one hundred dollars 
 more than the cost of the common iron or wooden screw 
 arrangement, to put liim 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 jiress. There is 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 Avill 
 waste less in handling, and, if bound Avith 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 Avithout damage from fire, water, 
 or rough and frequent handling. 
 
 Since the eifect of the recent war in opening the South 
 to free labor, and the application of Yankee ingenuity in 
 overcoming the vai'ious problems and difficulties in cotton- 
 growing, several cotton presses, ncAV 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 efi:ect of turning 
 the large cast iron wheels on ench side of the press, is to 
 move the screws c and d Avith great force in the direction 
 desired. These screAvs are fastened to a and 5, 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. o. gardnek's cotton puess. 
 
 position of the machinery Avlien 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 CULTUKE. 
 
 side of the press, and h to the riglit side. Tliis will lower 
 the follower to the bottom of the i^acking-box, when -it 
 may bo 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 
 liave 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 tliis 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 Avide, 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, Avhich 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, 
 Avhich 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, imder patents issued 
 April 15, 1856; June 16, 1863; July 28, 1863; and Janu- 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 55 
 
 ary 24, 18G5. The inauufocture 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, a 5 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 shajDe 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 lbs. each. 
 
 The No. 1 Press makes a bale of 300 lbs,, or under, and 
 its gross weight is 800 to 1100 lbs. This size is mostly 
 made for foreign shipment. 
 
 No. 2. — Weight of bale 400 lbs. ; gross weight of Press 
 IGOO lbs. 
 
 No. 3.— Weight of bale 500 lbs. ; Ayeight of Press 1900 
 lbs. 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 bi'oken, 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 Avire 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, Avith the clamps and the mode of 
 putling the rope through them. 
 
 The Avell-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 
 
COTTOX CULTUKE. 
 
 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. — ingersoll's bale rope tightener. 
 
 It is of great importance that he estahlisli with the mer- 
 cbant 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- 
 Ijacco 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 
 
58 COTTOX CULTUEE. 
 
 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 
 Avith the brand " G. W." 
 
 This shoxild 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 sliould also graduate his expenses, and manage 
 liis 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 sliipments. 
 
 The machineiy 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 
 waitmg to take in a cargo of cotton. Now, 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 bonrd 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 jjrices, (December, 18G6,) 
 the hundred bale cotton grower, whom we have been fol- 
 
COTTON 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 com, 
 peas, and oats ai'e alluded to, as they are cultivated more 
 or less on every plantation. 
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 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 
 an easy slope, and joassing directly to the gin loft, so that 
 cotton can be taken from the sheds or cribs, dried, and 
 carried up to where it wall 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 In 
 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 tliem. Look well after the ends of 
 your bales, and see that they are perfectly snug. 
 
60 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 On pleasant da^^s, the hands may be breaking down the 
 cotton stalks, or cleaving 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 foimd a very 
 slow exhauster of the soil. 
 
 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 coihfortable 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 pi'oduce 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 CULTUEE. 61 
 
 The first plowing contiuued briskly. Corn lands plowed 
 tlioroughly, and oats sowed. Have a large kitchen garden, 
 raise plenty of cahbages, 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 hea^i, on a side hill, and 
 yet keep it from washing away. 
 
 Observation will teach you what fill 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. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 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 wdth 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, Avhich should be soaked in a fertiliz- 
 ing mixture a day or tw^o, and rolled, while damp, in ashes 
 and 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 Gt the curve of the bed. 
 
62 COTTOX CULTUEE. 
 
 As soon as your cotton is jjlanted, 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, 
 keej) 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. 
 
 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 thorouglily. Tlie vines will soon monopolize the 
 surfixce, 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. 
 
 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 laud 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 croj) in the 
 best condition. 
 
 Look well after the comfort of man and beast these 
 blazing days, Avhen 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. 
 
 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 httle 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. 
 
 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 Avill 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 crojD Avill be swept 
 away ahnost as soon as Jonah's gourd. The army worm 
 is much less insidious in its advance than the cotton moth 
 or cotton cateri^illar, and you can arrest the march of the 
 devouring army by a narrow, sharp cut ditch carried all 
 aronnd 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 wall of earth, from twelve to 
 eighteen inches high, facing th« 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 midritf 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 Avhich 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 
 bu.rned. 
 
 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 diiferent 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. 
 
 SEPTEMBEK. 
 
 If your crop was rescued from thePdevourers, 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 y.our bauds, good bags 
 A\itli 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 
 au*. You can ill afiord to have hands out of the field now 
 with chill and fever. 
 
 The best month for picking. It is a remarkable set of 
 hands that can average two hundred pounds all aroimd, 
 yet, among a force of twenty pickers, some will always 
 bring in more than that in open cotton. 
 
COTTON CULTURE, 67 
 
 Keep the morale of your laborers at a high point. A 
 sad heart makes the raotions 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 croj) 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 
 Avill not have much inferior cotton. After frost and heavy 
 rauas there will be many imperfect bolls that 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 simj^le 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. 
 
 NOVEMBEE. 
 
 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 earliei*. 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 
 mucli 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. 
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 By the middle of this mouth, the cotton is mostly picked. 
 Now 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. Tlie extremes of the cotton belt mny 
 be said, in a general Avay, 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 teri'itory, can properly be 
 said to be siiited 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 COTTOX CULTUKE. 
 
 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, M^here 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. 
 
 The coast of Texas for fifty or sixty miles north-west 
 fi'om 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 j)roduces 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 
 
COTTOX CULTURE, 71 
 
 -washed down 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 tliis descrij)tion 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 easily 
 be protected by levees, there remains a vast breadth of 
 well-nigli 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- 
 
73 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 
 suffiir 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 cajDable, 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 ffom 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 swamj) " of 
 Louisiana, is malarious, and, 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 COTTOJf 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- 
 Avest corner of Arkansas, the lands on Red River, and the 
 streams Avhich 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 acre of seed cotton. 
 
 This part of the State has an unenviable reputation with 
 regard to health, but this diflliculty 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 Atchafelaya, 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 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 75 
 
 Carolina, there is reason to suppose tliat 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 rivei* 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 land. If the sugar interests of 
 Loixisiana decline, as the j^rospect 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. 
 
 N'orth of the Ai-kansas 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 Yicksburg, 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- 
 buslm, 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 gouthern pine. This is true of the fifteen 
 counties that lie in the south-east coi-ner. 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 surfiice, 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 CULTUKE. 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. 
 
 This State and Mississippi are remarkably similar in 
 situation, and in the amount and quality of cotton which 
 they j^roduce. 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, Avhose 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 COTTOX CULTUKE. 
 
 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 ahvays 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 CULTUKE. 71) 
 
 Wetumpka, are wide and very productive, but farther 
 north, the good cotton lands decrease in amount, theiie 
 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. 
 
 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 difiiculty is with the soil. In 
 the valleys of the Chattahoochie, the Flint, and on the 
 Avaters 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 hUls. 
 
80 COTTOX CULTtTEE, 
 
 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-thii'ds 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 cai*eful system of 
 plowing, with proj^er rotation, may keep the annual pro- 
 duction of this staj^le from falling off. 
 
 SOUTH CxVKOLINA. 
 
 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 m 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, Wateree, *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 
 has been settled, there remains a very considerable breadth 
 of undeveloped land, capable of producing three hundred 
 pounds and over per acre. 
 
 NOKTII 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 m 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 
 hundi'ed 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 Kashville before a cotton soil is 
 reached. Near tlie Alabama line, the climate and soil are 
 both quite favorable, and w-est of the Tennessee, near 
 Memphis, and around Jackson aifd 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 thaa half 
 of the average Texas crop. 
 
 COTTOJS" NORTH 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 efiects 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 
 
corrox culture. 83 
 
 by frost, not by natural maturity of the boll, inferior in 
 staple as well as diminished in bulk. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, cotton is planted on the first of 
 May, in a climate where corn is planted about that time. 
 It has May, June, July, and August to grow in. 
 
 If the heat of those months is as great as in Memphis, 
 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. Bat 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 two 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 Avas 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 oj^ened, 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 jDlant. 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 lico of natural size; 6, 
 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 ciits are given in this 
 chapter. 
 
 Of the first, httle, perhnps, 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 
 Avith regard to soil and moisture. 
 
 Where there is a rich but wet bottom from which fine 
 returns may be expected, and copious rains foUow 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-WOEM. 
 
 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- 
 
8G 
 
 COTTON CULTUEE. 
 
 iillBM 
 
 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 
 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. 
 
 Fig. 15. — CUT-WORM AND CHRYSALIS. 
 
 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 diflferent 
 parts of the field, but their ravages will be inconsiderable, 
 not sufficient to excite alarm except with the experienced 
 observer. 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 87 
 
 These worms Avill disappear in a few days, and the 
 sanguine planter may be feeling quite sure of an abundant 
 crop. His neighbors may be congratulating liim, and he 
 may write a flushed letter to his factor in the city ; 
 
 « * * " find 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 aflbrding 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 
 few 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 fi'om the ravages 
 of this worm, has given the following description, which 
 will enable the inexperienced to become duly warned. 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 " The cotton fly belongs to that numerons class of in- 
 sects known to naturalists under the term of phalena, or 
 moth tribe. The following are its specific characters, de- 
 scribed without technicalities. The little horns jjrojecting 
 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- 
 
 TUE COTTON MOTK AND CATEKPILLAR. 
 
 Description : a, young caterpillar after moulting its skin once ; b, full grown 
 caterpillar ; c, moth in motion ; d, moth at rest. 
 
 ally terminating on the belly and wings in a color tending 
 to russet. The ujDper 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 strij) of pale 
 pink color, and slightly notched. On the upper surface 
 of the Avings there are two black sj)ots, 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 simj^le, 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 them. 
 Though depending for its existence entirely upon cotton, 
 which is a trojDical 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 
 doAvn and killed with the paddle. 
 
 Another method is to mix molasses, vinegar and cobalt 
 in such projiortions 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 COTTON 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 M^alking 
 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 
 tbera, 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 plants upon Avhich Avorms 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 witliout 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 tlie 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 mnge, 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- 
 ininded 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. 
 
 2d. — 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 south, 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 Carolinas, will 
 
92 
 
 COTTOJJ 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 AKMY WORM. 
 
 Without pausing now to speculate or sum up the ob- 
 servations on the origin of this devourer, it will suffice to 
 
 i^. 
 
 THE AKMT-WOn:\I AND MOTH. 
 
 Description : a, the caterpillar, or army-worm ; h, cocoon formed of particles 
 of earth cemented together with silk or gum ; found under stones or in the earth ; 
 c, chi-j-salis ; d, 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 tlie 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 
 
 liis march. He is mucli 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 another, 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 eftective 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 measui-e, many planters cut such a ditch all around 
 their place, or at least ou 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, Wlienever 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, euttiiig 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 his 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- 
 
COTTOX 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 w^hich 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 spii-ally 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 stumjDS, 
 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 CULTUKE. 
 
 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 Avorms will be hatched, 
 and they commence to spread downward upon the plant 
 and commit depredations on the boll. 
 
 THE BOLL-WORM AND MOTH. 
 
 Description : a, the young worm eating into the young boll ; b, full grown 
 boll with hole eaten in the side, containing the Boll-worm after shedding skin 
 the 4th time (19th day), with fcEces in boll ; c, moth in motion, and d, at rest. 
 
 The Boll-worm is thus accurately described by Mr. 
 Boddie, of Jackson. 
 
 "The larva or caterpillar, when full grown, wall 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 
 
COTTOX CULTUKE. 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 bead 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 Teimessee 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. 
 
 Tliese preferences and habits of the Boll-worm under- 
 stood, it is not so difiicult 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 dra\\ing 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 for 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 follow, or be sowed with 
 
98 COTTO:S' 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 are, 
 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, witli 
 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 ujDon 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 otlier 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 
 Sej)tember. The worm would not be likely to leave the 
 corn for the cotton, xintil 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 
 
COTTOX CULTURE, 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 bi'own 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 j^roviding 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. 
 
 "Rot, 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 COTTOX 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 Avhich 
 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 exjDend 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, raxxst 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 w^orld, 
 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. 
 
COTTOyi CCLT-UEE. 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 
 tlie 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- 
 islied 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 soik 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 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 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 ai-e 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 coj)ious 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 phice, 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 jDlowing 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 Jefierson, who had seen the 
 peasants of France conforming the curve of their fnrrows 
 with the slope of the hills on which they were plowing. 
 Mr. Jefierson 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, spi-ead 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 cotto:n' 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 Avash 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 tliis 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, mai'ked 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 irregulari- 
 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. Thi'ow off two 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 t!ie 
 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, Aveeds, 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 
 
 In cultivating the land that has been thus preisared, 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 Avith 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 1853. 
 
 Mr. Forman recommends changing the grade 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 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 As a cheap yet eflfective tool for laying off this grade, 
 tlie following is given. It is Mr. Formau'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 
 tlie mortice several inches long, so that the har 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 wdiere you wish the water to be dischai'ged, that is, 
 at 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. 
 
COTTOX CULTURE. 107 
 
 After a violent sliower or a long washing rain, it will he 
 necessary to walk through the ditches to stop the washes 
 and throw out the bottoms with a hoe. In these visits 
 the farmer Avill often see slight changes that can be made 
 such as chano-ins^ the ffrade at the turns. 
 
 Fig. 19.— INSTRUMENT FOR GRADING. 
 
 a. Lath or bar 12 feet long, one inch thick, four inches 
 wide, with (/, a spirit-level screwed upon it. 
 h. 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, Avill 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 wuU 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 iliat lie can lay off ditches without any level, 
 except on very irregular ground. 
 
 We come now to a consideration of tlie i:)roi3er 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, 
 i^o jDart or constituent of the wool is ever returned. 
 
 Let us now see what chemical substances are abstracted 
 in taking aAvay this wool. Suppose a hundred parts of 
 cotton-wool be burned to an ash, and this ash subjected to 
 chemical tests. AYhat 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 gi'ow 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 ixpon the same twenty-five acres. There 
 will have been withdrawn frona the soil during that pe- 
 riod two hundred and forty pounds of phosi^horic acid, 
 three hundred and fifty poimds of lime, and six hundred 
 and twenty pounds of potassa. Such is the rate at which 
 ihe 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 v»'Ool is 
 
COTTOK CULTURE. 109 
 
 not returned to the soil. The composition of the iisli 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- 
 tass;), 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 retui-ned 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 imjDerative ; 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 
 tlie 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, 
 v.'hich 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 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 lands, we may say : Make a compost henp 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 ri'ch in the phosphates, is the 
 best. Next to guano may be mentioned crushed bones, 
 or bone ashes ; and it may be Avell 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 tlioroughly mixed with the soU 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, 111 
 
 cotton. Throw a shovelful of strong stable mannre hato 
 a shallow i:iit 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 maiaure, 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 
 tlie tender, reticulated or mesh-like, incipient, vegetable 
 fibre, to xxndergo 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 CULTUKE. 
 
 dowiiAvarcl, and commences j^onring out a semi-fluid sub- 
 stance which passes downward, partly by the force of 
 gravity. 
 
 " 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 warmtli 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 
 spi'ead 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 ? 
 
COTTOIf CULTURE. 113 
 
 First of all, let the planter who aspires to brilliant 
 success ill 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 metliods by w^hich this is done are given in 
 detail in the first pages of this chai:)ter. 
 
 Now let him arrange for a rotation of crops as follows. 
 Divide the plow^ed 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, mides, 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 np 
 a little bank at the fence, so the tendency of the Avash 
 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 ])me 
 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 imder 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 w^et days, or 
 immediately after a rain, 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 
 t^e 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 manm-e, made up as described, and especially that 
 to which 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. N"ow 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* 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 115 
 
 til all the inicldles are broken out and tlie manure well 
 covered in. 
 
 This should be done a month before planting time ; then 
 from the first to the tenth of April, if the season is sufii- 
 ciently warm and dry, harrow the beds and mark not only 
 the line of the rows, making them perfectly uniform and 
 straight, but by cross plowing lay ofi" the distance of the 
 plants from each other in the drill. 
 
 Probably with this high manuring, thirty or thirty-six 
 inches ouglit 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 Avhich 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 tlie third leaf appears, go over the crop with the hoe, 
 for, with the thorough plowing and harrowing, very little 
 grass will have made its appeai'ance in ten days. 
 
 Select the thriftiest plant and destroy all the others, 
 thus thinning out to a stand at once, and leaving the fields 
 pei'fectly clean. In this way, all the vigor of the soil, and 
 the dressing Avhich has been thus generously applied, is 
 concentrated upon the plants, and they may be expected 
 to thrive and gi-ow 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 Avay ; 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 difiiculty 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 l^eds, 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 mu.ch 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 powerfid 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 bands. 
 
 By following this method of thorough manuring and 
 systematic rotation, the certainty that the planter may feel 
 in his cotton crop is mucli greater, and the large amount 
 of cereals and edibles wliich 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 agamst 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 lifle 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, sufi'ering every year from 
 some of the diseases that befall, or the enemies that attack 
 the plant, so that the average yield, one year with anotli- 
 er, w411 not be much over half a bale to the acre. 
 
 Tliis almost incredible difierence is wholly due to a 
 
118 COTTOX CULTUEE. 
 
 Strict adherence to wliat should he regarded as a cardmal 
 principle in all farming oi^erations. 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 phospliates, is the 
 imj^rovement 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 tlie 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 germmation. 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 arboreuTn, 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 COTTOX CULTURK. 
 
 Upland or Green Seed, is as one to one hundred. As the 
 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 fimous " 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 southern 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. Thefy 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 
 sn^.all shipping point on the river where an eddy in the 
 
COTTOX CULTURE. 121 
 
 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 enterj^rising 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 "Pi-olific," 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. ISTow, how is this to be done? 
 6 
 
122 COTTON CULTUEE. 
 
 Ill general, it may be said, that cotton seed, like corn, po- 
 tatoes, or wheat, is imjjroved 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 Vicksburg 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 tlie hills around Rodney, Mississi^Dpi, where 
 the improvement began ; but there is just as good seed, 
 at present, elsewhere, as in that vicinity. We plant 
 ' Sng^r-loaf' or 'ProUfic,' ' Lewis' Prolific,' 'Vicks' Hun- 
 
COTTON CULTUKE. 123 
 
 drecl Seed,' ' Guatemala,' ' Brown Sead,' 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 tbe 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 diiferent 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 beconae 
 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 H. 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, requ.esting 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 CULTUKE. 120 
 
 very choice variety, and was produced, as we learn, from 
 Mr. Phillips, by Colonel Vick of Vicksbnrg, 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 tlio 
 fineness and softness of the staj^le. 
 
 Some of the varieties of cotton seed were wonderfully 
 prized when first introduced, and commanded sums that 
 seem almost fxbulous. For mstance, 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 County, Mississi^^pi, near Vicksburg, 
 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 cents 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' Avas 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 j^lanted 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 
 
120-^—--, COTTOX CULTU-JRR. 
 
 proceeds of his entire croiD 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 " 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 Avere used to- pro- 
 duce it. In other words, no variety will remain superior 
 unless the seed cotton is selected with care. 
 
COTTO^f CULTTJEE. 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 he does from that of his ginned cotton, — it being 
 understood, of cou.rse, that he is surrounded by planters 
 Avho, 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, in 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 ii-reg- 
 ular shape to 1;he plantations, biit permits boats to come 
 to almost every man's door. The mud from salt marshes 
 is much used as manure, and is difterently applied, accord- 
 ing to the taste and judgment of varioixs jDlanters, As 
 the soil is generally very light, it is unproductive, unless 
 manure is used ; and even v>'ith manure the average yield 
 of Sea Island cotton is not much more than half the av- 
 erage of Upland cotton. A sea-board planter, Avriting 
 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 COTTOIN' CULTUKE. 
 
 three dollars. During that period, the highest average 
 price paid was thirty-seven and a half cents j^er pound ; 
 the lowest, fourteen cents. 
 
 The Sea Island cotton is the product of a plant that 
 seems to have been first canied to tlie 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 hvmdred 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 jDOund, three and a 
 half of magnesia, and of lime nearly two pounds. The 
 principal difference between this and Upland cotton is in 
 
COTTOX CULTUKE. 129 
 
 a substitution of magnesia for lime. The amount of joot- 
 asli 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 ai-e 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, thei*e 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 jDhosphorus 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. Tlie result of this chemical exami- 
 nation of the Sea Island soil is, that it must be kept up by 
 tlie 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 scafiTold, -^vhere 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 late in the season, 
 or after a rain, is run thi'ough the trasher, which Avhips 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 Avhicli 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 efiectual 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 
 tvro 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 CULTUKE. 131 
 
 perolia rollers, of about the size of those used in clothes 
 wringers, might be found effective and durable. 
 
 A "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 j^ounds. N'o 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 oi'dinary 
 square bale, the purchasers preferring that packed by 
 hand. The operation of hand-packing, as it is called, is 
 performed by sewing 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 COTTO?^ CULTUKE. 
 
 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 poundsless 
 than the Upland bale. 
 
 This staple is never manufactured into the coarser mus- 
 lins, but is used for the most delicate febrics, 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 lai-ge 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 TurnbuU, on Skidaway Island, near Savan- 
 nah, and subsequently on St. Simon's Island, at the mouth 
 of the Altamaha, 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, Edisto, Saint Simon's, Jekyl, Skid- 
 away, and others, that line the coast of South Carolina, 
 Georgia, and Eastern Florida, produce 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 V. 
 
 HOW TO REALIZE THE MOST FROM A CROP ; SUGGESTIONS 
 
 AS TO THE UNION OF THE GROWING OF COTTON WITH 
 
 ITS MANUFACTURE INTO YARNS 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 i^racticable for the cotton- 
 growing communities to produce on the spot, and within 
 sight of the fields wdiere 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 eqviipment of a large neighborhood factory, with ar- 
 rangements and conveniences for manipulating the ent-ire 
 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 
 grooving is the business, everything else being subordinate 
 and auxiliary to this principal occupation. The average 
 
134 COTTOIT 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 aj)pliances 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 flictory 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- 
 bui-gs, 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 difiieulty. The number 
 should be no more than sufiicient to produce this amount 
 of cloth in the course of a year. K a larger number were 
 put uj), the building might need to be much stronger and 
 higher than would otherv.dse 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 CULTUKE. 
 
 135 
 
 W W W JV, represents a substantial wall, or fence, 
 that surrounds the factory. It is two hundred feet each 
 way. H, IT, are gate-ways. The enclosures, marked «, 
 a, a, are cotton-sheds, or cribs, of sizes varying according 
 
 PLAN OF COTTON FACTOKY AND INCLOSUEE. 
 
 to the number of bales which the diiFerent 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, scaflold, slop- 
 ing toward the south, upon which the cotton, when taken 
 from the sheds, is spread, to be thoroughly sunned before 
 
136 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 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. G 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 O, 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, j^ressing. clarifying, and barrel- 
 ing it. Immediately in the rear of G, 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 Httle 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 poAver, according 
 as rapidity and economy of human strength is desired, 
 and will compress four hundred pounds of cotton Avithin 
 the space of a cubic yard. 
 
 Of course, bales made in such a press and well bound 
 with iron hoops Avould require no further compression at 
 sliipping ports, and might be carried from the remotest 
 plantations to Boston, or to Liverpool, Avithout losing half 
 a pound in waste. 
 
 D and D are large double doors on rollers, at the rear, 
 Avhere the floor is on a level with the top of a Avagon 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 K K^ 
 are windows. 
 
 The first story or basement of the part marked B and 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 137 
 
 E, is occui^ied by the engine, wliicli is under the gin-room, 
 and by the packing screw ; and the rear portion, Avith 
 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 sjjinning 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, (18G7), considerably 
 over twenty-five cents a pound, this Vv^ould not be advisa- 
 ble ; but eventually, when cotton falls, as it may, to about 
 ten cents a pound, and the lowest grades to sis and seven 
 cents, it v<^ould 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 largo 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 COTTO^r CULTUKE, 
 
 gin or gill-house, and only very cheap cotton-sheds for the 
 temporary storing of a part of his crop, it heing 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 machineiy, 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 comj)ression 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 j)repared by being varnished, while hot, 
 with coal tar. In the engine house, close by, is a black- 
 smith's forge, wdiere 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 wQuld 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, 
 
COTTOX CULTUEE. 139 
 
 ill 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 axe 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 tlie 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, miislins, 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 jilain 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 
 his 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 difiiculty 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 icJiich opera- 
 tives are produced. The inhabitants of the cotton States 
 prefer agriculture to any other j)ursuit; 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 ovm. cloths. 
 The outlay and the enterprise to enable her to do this^ 
 are so modei-ate, that the immense advantages to be se- 
 cured by such a course must be forced upon the attention 
 
coTTOx crLTrrtE. 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 MAY 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 grov/ 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 i^rice of Upland Americans should fall below ten cents, 
 general foilure must overtake our cotton interests. While 
 it ranges from ten to fifteen, prudent and econoihical 
 
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 enaWe 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 afibrded 
 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 jiound, 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 yai'ds of un- 
 bleached domestic. 
 
 At that rate, and in summer time, the laborer can be 
 decently covered by exi^ending two dollars in cotton cloth. 
 
 The enormous demand for chea]) 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 inferioi- to those made exclusively from 
 the thread of cocoons. When matted together, it pro- 
 duces a Avad 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 dilficulty. But if the fibre is combed out ui 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 offset, 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 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 bility, sweetness, and Avarmtli, to wool or liair, 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 oue-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, wliat 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 
 fixmily 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 
 fariiily 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 avooI are bought, raised, or ex- 
 changed for cotton, it Avill 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 he 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 crojD 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 i-ealize from this admirable 
 l^lant all that its Creator has designed for t*lie 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 
 
 Lotiis Blanc, conducted a series of experiments with tlie 
 view of utilizing the fibrous hark of the cotton plant, and 
 making- of it a substitute for hemp. He arrived at some 
 very satisfictory 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 fmTow 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 tlie gunny or East India bagging, 
 and is spun like the Kentucky hemp, either by machineiy, 
 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 if 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 di'essing. 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 jDlaut, it may be added that Southern phy- 
 
COTTON CULTUKE. 149 
 
 sicians have found the tea of its root, or a decoction of it, 
 reduced to a syrup, a valuable antij^eriodic. 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 noAV 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 Avas 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 gavments 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 fi'uit," 
 
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 unported 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, Caesar 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 
 Avhich 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 brancli 
 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- 
 taclies 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. 
 
 Taveniier, a French traveler, sj)eaks of som.e muslins 
 and calicoes which he saw at Surat, " so fine that you 
 could hai-dly feel them in your hand ; and the thread, when 
 spun, is scarcely discernible." 
 
 The late Rev. William Ward, JMissionary 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 dew, 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 Avoven 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 Avonderful fineness of these Indian fab- 
 rics, it was supposed tliat 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 Avas 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, takmg 
 with them a large assortment of improved seed, the best 
 
152 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 of gins, models for gin-honses, and the necessary imple- 
 ments for cultivating the crop. They remained there 
 some six years. Their exjieriments were constantly di- 
 I'ected 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 sj^ring, 
 allowing the young jjlants 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 comjiares very 
 well with that of America ; but the quantity, owing to 
 the dependence of all agricultural operations on tlie 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- 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 153 
 
 edly superior to that from East India, and in fineness and 
 length of staple ranks next to American cotton. 
 
 In the New World, the manufacture of cotton cloth ajD- 
 pears to have been Avell 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 Mississij^pi River. 
 
 Coi'tez, when he set out from Trinidad, on the southern 
 coast of Cuba, on his Mexican expedition, used cotton for 
 jjadding 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 Avere " 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 
 jiart of the pi-esent 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 CULTURE. 
 
 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 m 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 difticulties 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 jirecise 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 j^amphlet on the 
 attractions of North America, published very early in 
 1600, a year or two after Jamestown was settled, it is 
 
corroisr 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 1693, " gave j)articular marks of his favor 
 towards the propagation of cotton, which, since his time, 
 has been much neglected." Up 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 draAvn to the invention of the cotton-gin is 
 a matter of so great interest that the foliosving brief 
 statement is copied frojn 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, 
 he 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 ex^jected. Mrs. Greene at once kindly 
 and generously j^roj^osed 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 median- 
 
156 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 ical ingenuity, wlilcli 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 agiiculture 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 
 ibe 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 
 II long search, at last lighted upon a small quantity ; with 
 this he returned to his temporary home and commtmicated 
 Ills 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 Avere admitted, or who knew 
 
COTTOX CULTURE. 157 
 
 anytliing of his project. His materials and tools were 
 both limited; even tlie wire which he required could not 
 Ibe found at Savannah, and he was forced to draw it for 
 himself. Near the close of the winter the machine was so 
 nearly completed as to leave no douht 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 ijie 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 
 months 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. 
 
 yariety 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 wou.ld never have 
 been made an object. The machine of which Mr, Wliit- 
 ney claims the mvention so facilitates the preparation of 
 this species for iise, 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 oiF, our capitals have increased, and 
 our lands trebled themselves in vahie. We cannot express 
 the Aveight 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 diiferent 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 ujoon 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 
 
 aboxit two-tliirds of all the cotton brouglit into England, 
 was from the United States. At present, or rather at the 
 outbreak of tlie 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 witliout 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. Fi'om that time to the crash of the cotton m- 
 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 fonner 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 avei'age 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 tliough fluctuating decline, the lowest price 
 bemg realized for the crops of 1843, 1845, and 1849, 
 
160 COTTON CULTURE, 
 
 wliich brought the planter but little more than six cents a 
 pound. From 1849 on until 18G4 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 j)er i^ound 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 j^resenting the distribution to 
 various countries of the entii-e cotton crop raised in all 
 parts of the v/orld. 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 AVest 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 Avith 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. IGl 
 
 and, four liunclred 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 m other European States. 
 
 A study of the tables prepared by Mr. Gribble, those 
 contained in the 'New Orleans Price Current, and those in 
 the New York Shij^ping 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 years 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 flicilities for 
 manufacturing Avhich different countries afibrd ; 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 raanuflxctured half the cotton produced in the world. 
 
 IV. — The cotton manufactures of Great Britain have 
 
162 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 advanced pari passu witli 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 the 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 18G0 
 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. 
 
 V. — 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 pex'manent. Whatever 
 cotton can be produced npon 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 folio wmg conclusions : 
 
 That the supply of cotton from other sources than the 
 United States has been irregularly decreasing ; that, in- 
 cluding the United States, the suj^ply from all quarters 
 available for English consumiDtion 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- 
 
COTTOIS^ CULTURE. 163 
 
 drecT bales a Av^eek ; that in the United Slates 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- 
 jily 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 tlie 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 tlie American States, coupled with very grave 
 doubts whether for many years, at least, the state of thmgs 
 in tliose unhai^py regions would admit of settled and suc- 
 cessful industry. But we have seen that under the enor- 
 mous stimukis 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 fiilling back 
 to about what they were before the war. The efiect is 
 not that the world gets along without American cottons, 
 but rather that in view of the diminished suj^ply 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 oftered or is likely to offer so large a field 
 
164 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 for common, unskilled labor, with returns so certain and 
 so generous as tlie 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, tlie 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 every 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 diiferences and uncer- 
 tainties can long arrest the march of the great laws of 
 political economy. It requires little sagacity to jDredict 
 that this transition state cannot last long, since society is 
 so rigidly controlled by its material interests as not to 
 
COTTON CULTURE, 165 
 
 permit the contiiniance for a great lengtli of time of such 
 a state of things. One great effect of the recent radical 
 changes in Southern society has been the openhag of the 
 cotton fields of the South to the labor of all races, instead 
 of tlieir 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 Avay of raising cotton, but one class 
 of persons who performed the labor, and but a single and 
 iTuvarying 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 ci-op ; 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, tliere 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 COTTOX 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 approj^riation 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 croj) in precisely the same spirit as that iu 
 which they have built railroads, tunneled mountains, ex- 
 cavated canals, and removed the fertilizing deposits upon 
 the Lobos Islands to the wheat fields and tlie 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 vai'ious 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, 
 f icility 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 Avay that a hundred thousand dollars invested 
 in the business Avill 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 IL, 
 Chapter I., are colored red. By examining that map, it 
 Avill 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 COITOX CULTURE. 
 
 unless it be the black prairies of Texas, which they very 
 mucli 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 Kiver, 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 suflicient 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 difiiculty 
 suggested is by no means formidable or insuperable. It 
 is simply a matter to be taken into consideration by the 
 cnpitalist, 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 communication 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- 
 
COITOX CULTURE. 169 
 
 ated, however, with respect to moisture, especially the 
 western part. The seasons of Alabama arc 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 Vicksburg 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 
 anythmg 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 j^er 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 j)erma- 
 nent investment is soiight, 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- 
 l^osits 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 Slate. 
 8 
 
170 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 These facilities for cotton growing and attractions to 
 capitalists in the two States which lie to the 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 
 Mississijipi 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 jjlant 
 does not expend itself upon the fruit, as is the case a hun- 
 dred miles forther 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 Avay 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 i^reeminent ; 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 sui-face ; the seasons 
 are well suited to the growth of corn and various other 
 edible crops; and this magnificent vaUey 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 u^ 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 become* cy- 
 press, cane, sycamore, sweet gum, tupelo gum, and 
 poplar, all indicative of the richest soil and the most 
 
17r2 COTTOK CULTUEE. 
 
 perfect aclnptation to the growtli 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 uneqnaled 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 difticulty 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 lauds within 
 easy reach of capital. The plantations which lie dh-ectly 
 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 cither 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 
 JDreadgtuffs in the more northern situations. There is no 
 
COTTOX CULTURE. 173 
 
 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 tlie 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 
 l^oint 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 improvements 
 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 manuficturing 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 
 fi'om 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. Tlie 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 
 i-esidences. The surface is commonly a dead level ; the 
 
174 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 water, except that which, descends from the clouds, never 
 good ; the air often loaded with feverish miasms and 
 swarming with musqiiitoes. 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, Avill not select an allu- 
 vial tract. By reference to the cotton map in the early 
 part of tbis Treatise, a large breadth of couutry 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 well-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. 
 Pei-haps the first locality that will attract a man witli 
 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 strij^s 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 oflset by the 
 extreme beauty of Middle Tennessee, the lovely slopes of 
 emerald, the noble wealth of oaken forests, the clear rnn- 
 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 successfally 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 CULTURE. i<0 
 
 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 Avhere 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 
 liis search. The same remarks here made of Middle Ten- 
 nessee apply with some modifications to the north-eastern 
 counties of Mississsippi, and the northern parts 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, tliere 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 moi-sture, to the wants of the cotton farmer as distin- 
 guished from the cotton j^lanter. 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 j^racticable 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 natui'al occupation of the inhabitants ; but 
 
176 COTTOX CULTURE. 
 
 the soil and climate both ai-e 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 Avho 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 gi'and 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 offer 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 his crop succeeds, clear over two hundred 
 dollars on each hand. Wlien cotton declines in price, the 
 value of labor in the cotton crop must fall ; 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 
 
COn^OX CTJLTUKE. 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 i^roportion of cases. 
 
 First — No night work. The air of a malarious bottom 
 is healthy enough while the sun falls upon it, but at dusk 
 the jioison begins to settle and enters the system through 
 tlie 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 Avinter, the laborer should, by the terms of his con- 
 tract, be furnished with a cup of hot coffee early in the 
 morning. No 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 Georgia, and the 
 temperature and health of Southern Illinois will not com- 
 ])ixre 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 Mississipjn, Alabama, Arkansas, and 
 8* 
 
178 C01T0:S^ CULTURE. 
 
 Texas, the land of farms, not of plantations, on which a 
 million and a half of bales have been i^roduced 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 surflice 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 intelhgent 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 hundi-ed 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, wall 
 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 CITLTURE. 179 
 
 returned, and the cotton form 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 groiving 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. 
 Now 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 concej)tion 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 tlie 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 FOKM THE CLOTHING OF THE EACE. 
 
180 COTTO]^- CULTURE. 
 
 C H A»P T E R IX. 
 
 COTTON SEED, COTTON SEED OIL, COTTON SEED CAKE. 
 
 BY J. K. STPnER, ESQ. 
 
 To every bale of cotton-lint, weighing 400 ponnds, 
 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 pi-oduction 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 t/O 
 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 Avhole 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 
 
COTTOJSr CL'LTUEE. 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 
 satisf^tory yield of oil was obtained. The result, how- 
 evei-, was not of 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 sci-ew, 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 New Orleans, and the St. Louis m.ills 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 New 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, delivei-ed 
 
182 COTTON CULTURE. 
 
 in sacks iii^on the Ibauk of the river, at some convenient 
 landing; the sacks usually contained from 80 to 100 
 pounds, and were suj)plied by the manufacturers, who sent 
 them to the planters. "When cotton seed oil mills were 
 first erected in the South, the planters, who had, pfevious 
 to that time, 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 pi'oposed 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 tlie liuller hy an endless canvass apron ; 
 it passes under a cjdiuder 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 pericai-p, 
 or hiill, 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, whei'e 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 consist 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 w^oolen 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 w%s thrown into the huller, two 
 merchantable articles arc produced at the press, crude 
 
184 COTTON CULTUEE. 
 
 cotton seed oil, and cotton seed cake. After the oil lias 
 cooled down to atmospheric temj^erature, and the floating 
 impurities have separated from it and settled to the bottom 
 of the tank, it is of a deep red color, and weiglis ahout 
 seven and a half j)ounds 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 
 liotels 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 cheajiest 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 Mclveone, 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 watei\ Every grade of the oil was 
 tlioroughly tested in this establishment, and efibrts 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 <flls, 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 fiimUy soap. In the manufacture of the finest qualities 
 o4 fancy soajDS, 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 broAvn 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 eftbrts of science were unsuccessful, though 
 they were conducted under the patronage of one of the 
 largest establishments in tlie country ; soap-makers, there- 
 fore, concluded that a firm, durable soap could not be 
 made from cotton seed oil. 
 
 At about this same time a series of experiments made 
 with great care, by Mr. A. W. Harrison, manufacturer of 
 various gi-ades 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 sucbeeded 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 sti'ong, cold, salt brine, and in this liquid, with the cot- 
 ton-seed oil soap, washed the bagging perfectly cleaih, 
 with little labor, leaving the fabric uninjurcLl. I know of 
 no soa^D 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," invai'iably 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 tlie cheapest and most durable soaj) 
 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 tlie variety of uses to which this oil 
 was applied, and the quantities pui'chased by a few large 
 dealers and manufacturers, the demand Avas never fully up 
 to the supply ; and the oil pressers always worked against 
 a dull market, and often were overstocked with oil, for 
 Avhich 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 crop 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 tlie oil thoroughly agitated. 
 The caustic solution and the oil, when mixed, should be 
 at the temjjerature 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 2-4 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 COTTOJC CULTUEE. 
 
 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 daii-ymen claim for it a superiority.' When fed to 
 milch cows, it increases the quantity and improves the 
 quality of the milk; it is a raj) id 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 difiers 
 to the extent of 5^ per cent. — say from No. 7, 13.50, to 
 No. 2, 19.19. 
 
 3d. — ^Decorticated cake contains a veiy 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, 
 
 Gth, — And lastly, it may be observed that the ash of 
 
COTTON CULTURE. 189 
 
 cotton-cake is rich in bony materials, and amounts to 
 about tbe 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 Avas 
 therefore ship^^ed 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 in 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 iess than 87,000,000. 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 
 fiimily and toilet purposes ; the cake meal will supj^ly 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 CULTUEE. 
 
 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 
 villasres and cities in the country. 
 
LIST OF 
 
 RURAL BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED AND FOR S^iXE BY 
 
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 NO. 24.5 Broadway, NEW YORK. 
 
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 Allen's (L. F.) Rural Architecture.. $1 50 
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 Animals 1 00 
 
 American Agricultural Annual, paper 50 
 
 cloth 75 
 
 American Horticultural Annual, paper 50 
 
 " " cloth 75 
 
 American Bird Fancier 30 
 
 American Pomology 3 00 
 
 American Rose Culturist 30 
 
 American "Weeds and Useful Plants. 1 75 
 
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 Bommer's Method of Making Manures 25 
 
 Boussingault's Rural Economy 1 60 
 
 Breck's New Book of Flowers 175 
 
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Breck's New Book of Flowers. 
 
 BY JOSEPH BRECK, 
 
 PE ACTIO AL IIORTICULTUEIST. 
 
 BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 This work, while preserving scientific accuracy, is written in a familiar 
 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 DEPAKTMENTS OF OUT-DOOR GAKDEWUMG 
 
 are treated, and the work really condenses into one volume what is m 
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 BuSl>S. The cultivation of bulbs, whether indoors 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 Dahhas, Chrysanthemums, and 
 such as usually fall under the head of florist's flowers. 
 
 FIOAvering 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. 
 
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AMERICAN POMOLOGY. 
 APPLES. 
 
 Hy IDoct, JOHJV A. T\^A.Iir)E:R, 
 
 PBEStDBKr OHIO POMOLOGICAL SOCIETT; VICE-PEESIDENT A-MKEIOAU POMOLOQIOAJ 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 393 II.a.llSTKATI©IVS. 
 This volume has about 750 pages, the first 875 of which are de 
 voted to tlie discussion of the general subjects of propagation, nur. 
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 fruit, insects, and the like ; tlie remainder is occupied with descrip- 
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 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 liaisonne, as the French would say, is the most extended 
 American fruit list ever published, and gives evidence of a fearful 
 amount of labor. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Cliaplcr 1— IIVTRODIICTORY. 
 
 Ciiaplcr II HISTOtJY OF THE APPLE. 
 
 Cliapter III— PROPAGATION. 
 
 Buds and Cuttings— Grafting— Budding— The Nursery. 
 
 Chapter ^V^— DWARFING. 
 
 Cliapter 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 XIH ami XIV.— INSECTS. 
 
 Chapter XV CHARACTERS OF FRUITS AND THEIR 
 
 VALUE— TERMS USED. 
 
 Chapter X^^.- CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 Necessity for— Basis of— Characters— Shape— Its Rego. 
 larity— Flavor— Color— Their several Values, etc. De- 
 scription of Apples. 
 
 Chapter XVII— FRUIT LISTS— CATALOGUE AND INDEX OF 
 FRUITS. 
 
 ■ Sent Post-Paid. Price $3.00. 
 
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GARDENING FOR PROFIT, 
 
 In the Market and Family Garden 
 By Peter HEKDERSOisr. 
 
 This is the first work on Market Gardening ever published in this 
 countrj'. 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 
 
 TAMILY 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 producta 
 for market. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Men fitted for the Business of Gardening. 
 The Amoiint of Capital Required, and 
 "Working i'orce per Acre. 
 Profits of Market Gardening. 
 Iiocation, 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 Vai'ieties 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 $1.50. 
 ORANGE JUDD & CO., 245 Broadway, New-York. 
 
DRAINING FOR PROFIT, 
 
 AND 
 
 DRAINING FOR HEALTH. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEO. E. WARING, Jk., 
 
 ENGINKEU OF THE DRAINAGE OF THE CENTRAL PARK, NEW-TOKK. 
 
 " BVEKT KEPORTKD CASE OF FAILUKE IN DEAINAGB WHICH WE HAVE INVESTI- 
 GATED, HAS KESOLVED ITSELF INTO IGNORANCE, BLUNDERING, BAD MANAGEMENT, 
 OB BAD EXECUTION."— (?/.s60/'?lf. 
 
 CQHTENTS: 
 
 Chapter I.-1,AND TO BE DRAINED AIVD THE RKASONS 
 
 WHY. 
 Cliapter II.-HOW DRAIKS ACT, AND H01V THEY AFFECT 
 
 THE soil.. 
 Chapter III.-HOW TO GO TO IVORK TO LAY OUT A 
 
 SYSTEM OF DRAINS. 
 Chapter IV .-HOW TO MAKE THE DRAINS. 
 Chapter V.— HOW^ TO TAKE CARE OF DRAINS AND 
 
 DRAINED LANDS. 
 Chapter VI.— WHAT DRAINING COSTS. 
 Chapter VII.-^VIL,L IT PAY? 
 
 Chapter VIII.-HOW^ TO MAKE DRAINING TILES. 
 Chapter IX.-THE RECLAIMING OF SALT MARSHES. 
 Chapter X.-MALARIAL DISEASES. 
 Chapter XI.-HOUSE AND TO^VN DRAINAGE. 
 
 Sent post-paid. Price $1.50. 
 
 N E W - Y O R K : 
 
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THE 
 
 I 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDEEY/ S. FULLEE. 
 
 NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. 
 
 THE STANDARD WORK 
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE HARDY GRAPE, 
 
 AS IT NOT ONLY DISCUSSES PRINCIPLES, 
 
 BUT 
 
 ILLUSTEATES FRAGTICE. 
 
 Elvery tliirii; is ixiacle perfectly plaiii^, and. its teaoh- 
 inss inay be folio-wed. -upon. 
 
 ONE VINE OR A VINEYARD 
 
 The folloxving are soute of the topics that are treated: 
 
 Growing New VAurKTiES prom Seed. 
 
 Propagation by Single Bods or Eyes. 
 
 Propagating Houses and their Manageuent fully DESCRiBEn. 
 
 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 Judd «fe Co., 2-^5 .Broad^vcly. 
 
THE 
 
 SMALL FRUIT CULTURIST. 
 
 ANDREW S. FULLER. 
 Beautifully Illustrated, 
 
 We have 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 bo 
 restricted as to space, as he must be in tliose works that cover the 
 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. 
 
 / 
 
 COIVTEIVTS: 
 
 Chap. I. Barberry. 
 Chap. II. Strawberry. 
 Chap. III. Raspberry. 
 Chap. IV. Blackberry. 
 Chap. V. Dwarf Cherry. 
 Chap. VI. Currant. 
 
 Chap. VII. Gooseberry. 
 Chap. VIII. Cornelian Cherry. 
 Chap. IX. Cranberry. 
 Chap. X. Huckleberry. 
 Chap. XL Sheperdia. 
 Chap. .XII. Preparation fop, 
 
 GATHERING FrUIT. 
 
 Sent post-paid. Price $1.50. 
 
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The Miniature Fruit Garden; 
 
 OK, 
 
 THE CULTURE OF PYRAMIDAL AND BUSH FRUIT TREES. 
 
 BY THOMAS EIVERS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 Mn. 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 
 
 D^varf Apples asid Pears. 
 
 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 Gardeiss and City Yard§, 
 
 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. 
 
 DAvarf Clierrics 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 
 evcrywtiere, 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, i 
 like all his writings, bears the marks of long experience in the practice of \^ 
 fruit growing. \ 
 
 BENT POST PAID. PRICE, $1. 
 
 ORANGE JUDD &. CO., 245 Broadway. 
 
COPELAND'S COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 A COI¥iPE^iDBUM 
 
 OP 
 
 AgricnltLiral and Horticnltural 
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Beautifully Illustrated. 
 
 It contams Descriptions, Hints, Suggestions, and Details of great value to 
 every one interested in Fruit, Flowers, Vegetables, or Farm Crops. It con- 
 tains 926 larc/e Octavo Pages, and 250 Enr/ravinris. 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 
 CHij Yard, the Roof or Window Garden, or the simple Flower Stand. It 
 also gives an abstract of the Principles, Construction, and Management of 
 Aquariums. Among numerous other matters it treats of 
 
 Oraitlingr, 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. 
 
 SBlCCp Managcnieilt, including Breeding, Feeding, Prices, Profits, 
 etc., receives attention, and a very full treatise on the Merinos is given. 
 
 Grape Cultuve occupies a large space, embracing the opinions of 
 men in all parts of the country, as to best sorts, planting, training, diseases, 
 and goneral management for home use or marketing. 
 
 Full I^ists 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 Kitclieil CJardeil receives particular attention, with lefor- 
 ffnce to the best way to grow and pi'eserve each kind of Vegetable. 
 
 / In short, as its name indicates, the book treats of almost every subject thai 
 needs co^isideration by those living in the country, or having any thing to do 
 with the cultivation of the soil. 
 
 Sent I=^ost-X^aici- . . I^i-ice, S3.00. 
 
 N E TV-Y O R K : 
 
 Oraiig-e Jii<i<:l «& Co., S4^ Bi-oatl^vr a; -■. 
 
MY VINEYARD AT LAKEVIEW; 
 
 OR, 
 
 SUOOESSFUL GEAPE CULTURE. 
 
 BY A WESTEE2T GRAPE GROWER. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 To any one who wishes to grow grapes, whether a single vine or a yine- 
 yard, this book is full of valuable teachings. The author gives not only hia 
 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 as 
 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 
 kh way along into the successful cultivation of a vineyard in Ohio. — Mass. Plcughman. 
 
 It is the experience of a practical grape grower, and 7iot the theory of an experi- 
 mentei-. — Bath Daily Sentinel and Tinus. 
 
 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 grnpe 
 region of the West, and will be welcomed by a large class of readers. — New-Bedfwi 
 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 thisi 
 delightful and profitable branch of horticulture. — Vermont Farmer. \ 
 
 Just the manual for a beginner, by one who says " he is well rewarded in the succeBB 
 attained." Adding, "It might have been reached in half the time, had I possessed th« 
 knowledge imparted to the reader of this book.' • -Boston Cultivator. 
 
 Sent Posf-jmid Price, $1.50. 
 ORANGE JUDD & CO., 245 Broadway, New-York. 
 
1 
 
 Downing's Landscape Gardening and Rural 
 Ai^cMtectoe. 
 
 Price, $G.50. 
 
 The most complete and valuable -vrorlc ever issued on Landscape Gardening In 
 Korth- America, for the Improvement of Country Kesidences; containing full Dircc- 
 llDiis for ever}' thins connected with LajMnj; out and adorning the Kural Home, the 
 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 fine Wood Engravings. By the late A. J. Downing. New Edition, En- 
 larged, Newly Illustrated and Revised, with Supplement, by Hbney Wisthkop's.»B- 
 CEXT. Octavo, 53-1 pp. E.\tra cloth, gilt, beveled boards. 
 
 This Edition contains a Splendid neic porlrait on Steel, of Mr. Downijjq. 
 
 Herberf s Hints to Horse-Keepers, - - - {New Edition.) 
 
 Pi-ico, $1.75. 
 
 Tliis Is the best practical work on the Horse, prepared in this country. A Coiiplktk 
 Manuai, 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 Piide a Horse, etc., and Chapters on Mules and Ponies, etc. By the late 
 Henky William Hekbekt (Frank Forrester). Beautifully Illustrated tliroaghout. 
 Cloth, 12mo., 425 pp. 
 
 13e:es. 
 Quiflby's Mysteries of Bec-Reepiiig Explained. 
 
 Price, $1.50. 
 
 ^"cpiiiUj tcrltten throughout, containing the results of thlrty-flve years of successful 
 exprjricncc, with./"»H, plain, ami practical Directions for all details of Bee Culture; 
 Inc iuding also a Description and Manner of Using the Movable Comb and Box Hiveg, 
 wiUi the most approved modes of Propagating and Treating the Italian Bee, etc., etc., 
 W.itU numerous Illustrations. By M. Quincv, Practical BecKccpcr. 
 
 NEW-YOrJv : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 ORANGE JUDD & 
 
THE AMERICAISr 
 
 AgrliiMnral 4iinal 
 
 FOR 1368. 
 
 J^ Y'ear-IBook 
 
 "Wanted by Evepybody- 
 
 This volume is now ready, and contains mucli of interest to 
 every agriculturist. Besides the general record of agricultural 
 progress, it has a valuable article on 
 
 Factory ©airy Practice, 
 
 By Gardner B. Weeks, Esq., Secretary of the American Dairy- 
 men's Association, in which he discusses the reasons for the best 
 [)ractice and the most approved apparatus, buildings, etc., fully il- 
 lustrated, and is equally interesting to the practical dairyman and 
 to the novice. 
 
 ScAvers and Eartli-Closels 
 
 In their relations to Agriculture, by Col. Geo. E. Waring, Jr. 
 ^Vintcr Wheat, 
 
 Describing, with engravings, new and valuable varietie,s by Joseph 
 Harris and John Johnston ; an article upon 
 
 Scythes and Cradles, 
 
 By John W. Douglas, (fully illustrated ;) also articles on Horse- 
 Breaking and on Bitting Colts, by Sam'l P. Headly, Esq., (il- 
 lustrated ;) on Recent Progress in Agricultural Science, by Pxof 
 S. W. Johnson ; on Commercial Fertilizers, Veterinary Medicine 
 and Jurisprudence, Progress of Invention Affecting Agricultui'e, 
 Valuable Tables for Farmers and others, etc. 
 
 It is intended that the work shall be practical, excellent in thel 
 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 1837, 
 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. 
 
 OEANGE JITDD & CO., 
 
 245 Broadway, New-York. 
 
THE AMEEIOAE" 
 
 FOR 1868. 
 
 .A. ITear-Book 
 
 FOR 13¥"KRY HOmK. 
 
 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 wlio contributed to its pages are 
 
 Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, 
 Peter Henderson, 
 Thomas Meehan, 
 josiah hooi'es, 
 Wm. S. Carpenter, 
 George W. Campbell, 
 Doctor Van Keitren, 
 
 Doctor John A. Warder, 
 S. B. Parsons, 
 Jas. J. H. Gregory, 
 George Such, 
 Andrew S. Fuller, 
 John Saul, 
 James Vick, 
 
 and other well-known pomological and fioricultural 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 JUDD & CO., 
 
 245 Broadway, New-York. 
 
4<=^ -#=^4" 
 
 [Established in 1842.] 
 
 A Good, Cheap, and very Valuable Paper for 
 Every Man, Woman and Child, 
 
 I N C I T Y, ¥ I L L A G E and COUNTRY, 
 
 AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
 
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 FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD, 
 
 Including a Special Department of interesting and 
 
 fnstructive Reading for CI^ILOREI^ and YOUTH. 
 
 The Agriculturist Is a largo periodical of Tldrty-tico pagt^, quarto, not octavo, 
 beautifully printed, and filled with plain, practical, reliable, original matter, includ- 
 lug hundreds of beautiful and instructive digi-avliigs In every annual volume. 
 
 It contains each month a Calendar of Operations to be performed on the Farm, 
 in the OrcUai-il and Garden, in and around the B^vcUiiig, €tc. 
 
 The thousands of hints and suggestions given in every volume are prepared by prac- 
 tical, intelligent -worlciiig men, who know what they talk and write about. The 
 articles are thoroughly edited, and every way reliable. 
 
 The Houseliol;! Department Is valuable to every Housekeeper, affording 
 very many useful hints and directions calculated to lighten and facilitate in-door work. 
 
 The Department for Cliiltlren anil Yontli, 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 150,000) 's so 
 
 large that It can be furnished at the low price of $1.50 a year ; four copies, one yea r, for 
 $5; ten copies, one year, for $12; twenty or more copies, one year. $1 each; 6lh\?le 
 copies, 15 ceuts each. An extra copy to the one furnishing a club of ten or twenty. 
 
 ORANGE JTJDD & CO., 
 
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 'f No. 245 Broadway, New- York City/ff \ 
 
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