1902-1903.] Cotton and its Cultivation. 53 



badly farmed uplands it is often not over a foot high. The 

 yield ought to average from 800 lb. to 1000 lb. of seed 

 cotton per acre, and the lint or fibre after ginning should 

 range from 250 lb. to 300 lb. A good farmer, even in 

 uplands, sometimes gets from 1200 lb. to 1500 lb. of cotton 

 seed per acre. On the rich lands of the Mississippi valley 

 and Texas it is usually from 4 to 6 feet high, but on the 

 richest land it grows high enough to conceal a man on horse- 

 back. The yield on the richest lands is often 1500 lb., and 

 I have known as much as 3000 lb. of seed cotton per acre 

 yielding 1000 lb., or two bales of lint, and this without any 

 crop rotation or fertiliser. 



After picking, cotton is taken to the gin-house, where the 

 lint is removed from the seed. Before the invention of the 

 gin this process was expensive to an almost prohibitory extent, 

 but now it is easy and cheap. Let me illustrate. In the 

 year 1747 seven bags of cotton were exported from Charles- 

 ton, S.C., and again in 1787 three bags were sent to England. 

 The consignees were informed that it was not worth pro- 

 ducing, as the lint could not be separated from the seed. 

 Before the invention of the gin a slave's task, over and above 

 his ordinary work, was the separation of 4 lb. of cotton from 

 the seed per week, and this was only demanded per head of a 

 family. This meant two years' work to do what a gin does in 

 twenty minutes. Eli Whitney of Georgia invented the gin in 

 1794, and the first gin driven by water-power was built in 

 1795 in South Carolina. This was one of the great inven- 

 tions of history, converting, as it did, a great staple from 

 practical uselessness to enormous commercial importance. In 

 1793, the year before the invention of the gin, the whole 

 export of cotton from the United States was about 1000 

 bales, and all the production was exported, while last year the 

 production was about 11,000,000 bales. 



So much for lint cotton ; but the plant yields more than 

 the staple. The seed has come to be of great importance in 

 commerce. A few years ago the whole of the seed was either 

 decomposed as a fertiliser or thrown away. Now it yields an 

 enormous revenue, and supplies the raw material of a great 

 industry. I have already pointed out that two-thirds of the 

 weight of the cotton as picked is in the seed. Over 5,000,000 



