138 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



a large per cent would be hungry and their homes would be bare 

 and comfortless."* 



Let me repeat, "Thrice blessed is that land which produces 

 the cotton; it blesses him who produces, him who manufactures 

 or transports and him who wears." Like many another farm prod- 

 ucts, the producer of cotton has for so long received the "short end 

 of the stick," so to speak, that the growing of cotton, is to a cer- 

 tain extent looked down upon, when in fact it is one of the pret- 

 tiest of farm crops to produce. The cotton is a beautiful plant, 

 easily adaptable to warm, temperate climates. It is grown, as a pot 

 flower in the north and has been grown successfully as a commer- 

 cial crop as far north in Missouri as Boonville, Cooper county. 



Missouri has grown cotton for more than a hundred years. 

 It was the introduction of slaves for the purpose of cultivating 

 cotton, and tobacco that brought forth the "Missouri Compromise," 

 and in a great measure was responsible for the attitude of the 

 citizenship of this State in, the Civil war. While the cotton- 

 growing territory of Missouri is restricted to the southeast, I 

 claim that it is not because the cotton plant is not adaptable to 

 the soil and climate of practically all that part of the State south 

 of the Missouri river, but that there are other reasons why it has 

 not met with favor farther north. Since the Civil war Missouri has 

 been developed by emigrants from the northern states rather than 

 from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, whence came our settlers 

 before the war. The later emigrants are not familiar with the 

 growth of cotton, its method of cultivation, etc. The price of cot- 

 ton for two decades was barely above the cost of production, in 

 the south, where negro labor was cheap, and thus it came to be 

 neglected by the more northern communities. But in Southeast 

 Missouri, where the southern element continues to predominate, 

 the successful growing of the cotton plant has never fallen into 

 disrepute, but is more rapidly gaining favor since the price has 

 advanced to such a degree as to make its cultivation attractive. 

 The crop of 1911 aggregated almost a hundred thousand bales, and 

 the total value of the lint and other products approximated five 

 millions of dollars, yet this crop was produced on less than eighty- 

 five thousand acres, giving a yield in excess of a bale to the acre — 

 more than fifty dollars per acre on an average for Missouri's cot- 

 ton in 1911, and this in a haphazard, unscientific manner of culti- 

 vating and handling. What other state approaches Missouri in 



♦"The Story of Cotton," by Brooks, Rand McNally & Company. 



