3(i THE COAST REGION. 



in son island cotton culture." " Any one hand, with ordinary implements 

 and management, can make four times as much cotton as he can gather." 

 Naturally this suggests the reflection, wliat is to be done, in a region 

 devoted almost exclusively to cotton culture, with tlie three hands not 

 needed during the cultivation of the crop, ])ut of paramount importance 

 during the picking season. What industries can be introduced to give 

 them employment? It would seem, whatever they are, they must be of 

 such a character as is suited not only to cheap labor, but to cheapen labor. 

 Already the cotton picker pockets one-sixth of the gross value of the crop, 

 and is a heavy burden on the producer. At $7.50 per bale, which is 

 below the actual cost of picking, it requires an expenditure of $40,000,000 

 to $45,000,000 to gather the crops now made. This large sum is paid out 

 in the space of two montlis for work in which the most unskilled and 

 least robust laborers excel. Just here there is a gorge in the industry of 

 the cotton belt, piling up a vast reserve of stagnant energies to surmount 

 the obstacle of cotton picking. Should it ever be removed, and ma- 

 chinery be invented to reduce the cost of this Avork, improvements in 

 culture would follow so rapidly, and the product of cotton could be so 

 greatly increased, that, besides being used for clothing, it might become 

 one of the cheapest materials for building purposes. Everywhere, in the 

 production of this staple, improvements are possible to an indefinite 

 extent; but when cotton picking is reached, there, as in gold digging, 

 the only resource is a human being, an unskilled drudge, at low wages. 

 This absolute dependence of cotton production on purely human labor 

 has not been without its humanizing influences, and king cotton has been 

 more powerful to preserve friendly relations between the stronger and 

 the weaker race than military governors and reconstruction acts. The 

 comparatively small amount of manual labor necessary for crops of grain 

 or hay might, had such crops replaced the culture of cotton, have left the 

 negro with as little support on American soil as the Chinaman, and their 

 hegira to the West, or to Africa, might have been possible ; as it is, the 

 home of the cotton pickers has been made too soft and easy a place to 

 them to render any such occurrence at all probable. 



4 



DISEASES AND ENEMIES. 



As has been already stated, the long staple cotton is a more vigorous 

 grower and less subject to diseases than upland cotton. Neither sore 

 shin, blight, rust, or the shedding of fruit in unfavorable seasons, seems 

 to affect it to the same extent. Its enemies are in the vegetable kingdom, 

 weeds and grass, especially tlie nut grass and the Bermuda, and against 

 these the constant and skillful use of the hoe and plow are the only safe- 



