306 
Seabrook, in 1844, that three parcels of long-stapled cotton seed were, 
to his knowledge, brought in 1785-86 from the Bahamas to a gentle- 
man in Georgia, it would seem certain that the seed reached our coast 
from those islands. There it was knownas Gossypium barbadense, as 
coming from the Barbadoes. In the Barbadoes it was called Persian 
cotton, the seed having been brought from that country. In this 
manner its descent from the G. arboreum of India 1s traced. 
Be.this as it may, Mrs. Kinsey Burden, Burden Island, Colleton 
County, S. C., obtained some of these seeds from Georgia and planted 
them. This crop failed to mature, and the first successful crop of 
long-staple cotton grown in South Carolina was planted in 1790 by 
William Elbott, on the northwest corner of Hilton Head, on the 
exact spot where Jean Ribault landed the first colonists and erected 
a column of stone, claiming the territory for France a century before 
the English settled on the coast. Mr. Elhott’s crop sold for 104d. 
per pound. Other planters made use of this seed, but it was not until 
Kinsey Burden, sr., of Colleton County, began his selections of seed, 
about the year 1805, that attention was strongly called to the long 
staple. Mr. Burden sold his crop of that year for 25 cents per pound 
more than did any of his neighbors. He continued to make selections 
of seed and to improve his staple, and in 1825 he sold a crop of 60 
bales at $1.16 per pound. The year subsequent his crop sold for 
$1.25, and in 1828 he sold 2 bales of extra fine cotton at $2 per pound, 
a price not often exceeded since. The legislature was on the point of 
offering Mr. Burden $200,000 for his method of improving the staple 
of cotton, and Mr. William Seabrook, of Edisto, was prepared to pay 
him $50,000 for his secret, when it was discovered that the fine cotton 
was due wholly to improvements made in the seed by careful and 
skillful selection. Since then the greatest care has been bestowed 
upon the selection of the seed, and to such perfection was the staple 
brought by this means that the crops of some planters were sold not 
by sample, but by the brand on the bale, as are the finest wines. 
During the war of 1861-1865, the cultivation of the finest varie- 
ties being abandoned on the islands, the seed removed to the interior 
greatly deteriorated in quality. So scarce, on this account, was good 
seed directly after the war that J. T. Dill, a cotton merchant in 
Charleston, at one time had, in an ordinary letter envelope, the seed 
from which are derived all the better qualities of long staple now cul- 
tivated. Nor have the improvements made by careful selection of 
the seed ceased in later years. The staple has kept fully up to the 
best grades of former days, and the proportion of lint to seed cotton 
has been increased. Formerly 1 pound of lint cotton from 5 pounds 
of seed cotton of the fine varieties was considered satisfactory. 
Thanks to the efforts of Mr. E. M. Clark, a cotton has been recently 
found which yields 1 pound of lint to 34 of seed cotton, preserving 
at the same time the length, strength, and evenness of fiber charac- 
teristic of the best varieties. 
BEANS. 
The history of the derivation of the bean (Vicia sativa, Vicia faba, 
and Hrvum lens) is given by A. de Candolle (see Agr. Sci., Vol. I, 
p- 58), who shows that its cultivation began in Persia, and that the 
common white bean, which has been cultivated since prehistoric times 
