3l6 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



leaving behind the little pointed bolls with the 

 green calyx to protect each. Gradually the boll 

 grows until it reaches the size of a hen's egg. 

 Then it cracks along three division lines, showing 

 white fibres that hide the seed. In a little while 

 the picker comes to pull the fibrous mass out of the 

 pod, and the story is ended. 



Not all of the bolls ripen together on a plant. 

 Indeed, it would be a simple job to invent har- 

 vesters for cotton as for corn. But the bolls ripen 

 gradually through a period of three months. The 

 colored race loves the cotton, and furnishes the 

 pickers. Families leave the cities and swarm to 

 the fields, singing the songs of their people, revel- 

 ling in the freedom and the beauty of the country, 

 while they work (not too hard!) and earn money 

 against the coming of winter. The picking costs 

 two cents per pound of lint. The farmers of the 

 South paid out $75,000,000 for the picking of the 

 cotton crop of 1905! 



The pickers' bags are weighed as they are emp- 

 tied, and the seed cotton goes by the wagon- 

 load to the gin. 



The cotton gin is the machine that separates 

 seeds from lint. Until 1792, when Eli Whitney 

 invented this wonderful machine, the seeds had 

 to be picked by hand out of the fibre a toil- 



