90 THE UPPER PINE BELT. 



farmers, confined to the home markets, cannot sell such staple to advan- 

 tage, and therefore neglect it. The quantity of seed used depends on the 

 method of planting ; in drilling by hand, the most common practice, three 

 bushels is required ; with tlie planter, which is coming more into use, 

 one to one and a half bushels answers; with the dibble, a two-wheeled 

 implement, drawn by a horse, the wheels running on the beds and mak- 

 ing holes for the seed by blocks fastened on to the tire, a half-bushel will 

 do. The seed comes up according to the greater or less favorableness of 

 the season, in from four to ten days after planting. The young plants 

 are thinned out to hills eight inches to twelve inches apart, sometimes to 

 eighteen inches ; usually only one stalk is left, some prefer to have two. 

 Thinning occurs four to six weeks after planting, from the time the third 

 to the sixth leaf makes its appearance, and is completed early in June. 

 Blossoms first appear when the plant is six inches to twelve inches high, 

 from the 10th to the 20th of June. Bolls open forty-two to forty-five 

 days after the blossom ir^ the latter part of July and first of August. In 

 favorable seasons,, picking has commenced before the 12th of August ; or- 

 dinarily not until the 20th. The cotton is picked and ginned as fast as 

 it opens, and the work can be done, the best planters estimating the loss 

 of leaving it in the field, even during good weather, for a few weeks, as 

 very heavy. All the crop is picked by the 1st to the 15th of December, 

 and by far the most of it in the market before Christmas. The after cul- 

 tivation of the crop consists of four to five ploughings with the sweep and 

 three to four hand hoeings, and is completed from the first of July to the 

 last of August. 



GINNING, BALING AND SHIPPING. 



No decided preference for any of the numerous gins used in this region 

 can be ascertained ; those most commonly in use are the Brown, Winn- 

 ship, Gullett, Carver, Findley and Massey, Elliott, Winn, Taylor and Ex- 

 celsior. Thirteen correspondents report that four employ steam engines, 

 seven employ horse power, and two employ water power in ginning. The 

 steam gins turn out two hundred and twenty-five to four hundred pounds 

 lint per hour, the horse-powers one hundred pounds to two hundred 

 pounds in the same time, the water-powers two hundred and fifty to four 

 hundred. The estimate of seed cotton required to make four hundred 

 pounds of lint, varies from 1,200 to 1,400 pounds, and averages 1,225 

 pounds. On this point a correspondent says: " The proportion of lint 

 varies largely with the season, with the variety of cotton, with the stage 

 at which the cotton is picked, and even with different bolls of the same 

 variety picked at the same stage. I plant a large part of my crop with 

 a fancy long staple upland variety. I have known it to require 1,800 



