SECTION IV: SEA ISLAND COTTON 283 



original one. These are carefully studied and obvious departures 

 from the type uprooted. The seed from the remainder is, during the 

 subsequent season, employed to sow about five acres, and from that 

 stock seed is procured for the general crop in the fourth year. A 

 new plant is chosen and the process of improvement repeated 

 annually. In this way, by continuous selection, the stock is preserved, 

 and many of its peculiarities become more or less fixed. 



In one of his contributions on this subject, Mr. Webber narrates Eegistra- 

 the system pursued by another experienced planter, Mr. W. A. Clark, 

 of Columbia, S.C., on his James Island plantation. The selected 

 plants are tested according to (a) degree of covering of seed, (6) 

 size of seed, (c) length of staple, (d) fineness of staple, and (e) 

 uniformity in length. Five grades are recognised under each of the 

 tests (a) to (e) inclusive, and a first place is valued as five, a second 

 as four, and so on. A table is filled up to represent the produce of 

 the selected plants, and the highest valuation there shown is taken 

 as denoting first quality. The next step is the test of ginning. Two Propor- 

 samples that each total, say 16, by the above system, are compared as 



to the amount of seed-cotton (unginned cotton) required to produce seed- 

 a standard bale of 300 Ibs. of ginned cotton. This is obtained by 

 the equation : weight of lint to combined weight of lint and seed, 

 as 300 Ibs., is to x. A cotton that shows a valuation of 16 was 

 found to require 1,001 Ibs. unginned to produce 300 Ibs. ginned 

 cotton ; another that gave a total of only 11 by the combined merit 

 standard necessitated 1,068 Ibs. to produce the bale. Obviously, the 

 former would be selected as the best stock. In the early days of the 

 Sea Island cotton the proportion of lint to seed cotton was 1 to 5 ; by 

 the modern improvements it has been reduced to 1 to 3. In another 

 way the improvement accomplished may be even more forcibly 

 demonstrated. In the days of slavery the individual estates under 

 cotton were large say 400 to 500 acres now they are rarely more 

 than 50 to 60 acres. In the former system the yield did not exceed Yield per 

 80 to 100 Ibs. to the acre, now 250 to 400 Ibs., or even close on 600 

 Ibs. of ginned cotton, is the usual outturn. (See p. 290.) 



The second illustration that need be here given may be taken p 1 "?.?.? 6 



to wilt. 

 from the efforts to procure stock immune to the destructive disease 



known as 'Cotton Wilt.' All other methods of treatment having 

 failed to combat that disease, the endeavour was made to produce 

 a resistant stock. It was observed that even in the worst infected 

 plots a few plants remained healthy. The most satisfactory one of 



