198 COTTON 



cotton to-day just as it was done in India a thou- 

 sand years ago. Hand picking, hand harvesting, 

 is not only the rule, but it is the only method of 

 gathering the lint. 



Other crops have labor-saving devices in use in 

 this final phase of their production. With wheat, 

 corn, oats, potatoes, all our leading crops, while 

 the cost of production has been lessened in our 

 time, the cost of harvesting has been reduced many 

 times. With cotton it is different. Slave labor 

 passed; paid labor took its place. And labor cost 

 is steadily increasing. It costs more to-day than a 

 quarter of a century ago, more than it did a decade 

 ago. 



The great hope of the South then lies in the di- 

 rection of better labor-saving devices for lessening 

 the cost of cotton production! Some will come, 

 of course, for better preparation for the crop, and 

 for its better culture, thereby increasing the yield : 

 but the greatest improvement will be found when 

 the cotton crop may be picked with somewhat the 

 same independence of hand labor as obtains in the 

 harvesting of other staple crops. 



You think this can never come ? 



We were fifty years producing the wheat har- 

 vester, and from its nature gathering grain, cutting 

 it, and binding it are not as many features included 

 and complications involved as in the harvesting of 

 cotton ? 



The cotton picker will come. In its experimen- 

 tal stage now, it is not to be dismissed with a mere 

 wave of the hand. It picks now. That much is 

 certain. The time will come when it will pick 

 profitably. 



The successful cotton picker has only to do the 

 work efficiently and cheaply. It must be built to 



