FARMERS' REGISTER— SEA ISLAND COTTON. 



355 



South Carolina. In the long and diligent cultiva- 

 tion ot^ cotton for now almost lorty years, many 

 changes have been observed to have come over 

 the cotton under the influence of soil and climate; 

 but the writer can distinctly state that the cotton 

 he now grows is descended in direct line t>om the 

 cotton seed received by his father trom Col. Kell- 

 sall, and that every ))lant of sea island cotton in 

 either Georgia or Carolina, is derived Irom the small 

 ))arcels of cotton seed transmitted about that time 

 from the Bahama islands, and which was the seed 

 known in the West Indies as the Anguilla cot- 

 ton. 



It was soon noticed by cotton growers that soil 

 and situation had more than common influence, as 

 well upon the quality as upon the quantity of col- 

 ton produced upon any given portion of land. Cer- 

 tain soils and situations retained in the cotton its 

 original appearance, an intcnseness of yellow in 

 its blossom, a fruit full and sound, a seed quite 

 black, and free from fur or down; while upon other 

 soils and upon other situations the plant, the flower 

 and fruit was putting on other appearances. The 

 plants as if anxious to adjust themselves to a new 

 temperature, took on a more coarse configuration 

 of limbs and stem, a thicker branch, a rougher, 

 larger and more scalloped leaf, a more cone like 

 pod, a seed covered either in whole or at its points 

 with the close down or fur that has already been 

 described. At first the most careful cultivators 

 were an.xious by selection to keep the seed as much 

 as possible resembling the seed first introduced; 

 that is, black and free ti'oin down, and the more so 

 as it was most easily separated from the cotton by 

 the machines employed, and was considered most 

 productive; but in process of time the varieties 

 that stole up among the original stock was found 

 to produce a finer and more uniform and longer 

 wool. The current of selection has now therefore 

 directed itself another way, and these hybrids, for 

 I believe them to be so, although the germs of 

 tliese changes may have lingered for ages in the 

 original seed without developing themselves, have 

 taken on three distinct appearances in seed; nei- 

 ther in blossom or jilant differing to the eye from 

 each other, although greatly diflering from the 

 parent stock, as being coarser and rougher in their 

 form and leaf, with blossoms of a lighter yellow; 

 having bolls larger and more cone like in their 

 shape. The finer cottons of the sea islands are 

 obtained from these three varieties of seed: one 

 Avith little or no down upon it, but with a long beak 

 or point, to a seed longer than the original; a seed 

 with down upon the two ends, but still with the 

 pointed beak; and thirdly, a long seed with a sharp 

 beak but completely covered with a soft close fine 

 fur or down inseparably connected with the shell 

 of the seed. These new varieties which produce 

 the cotton now most in request are later in perfect- 

 ing their fruit, and have consequently increased 

 the uncertainty of the most uncertain and doubtful 

 crop to which perhaps human care was ever di- 

 rected. 



But we will now proceed to describe the situa- 

 tion and soils. There is a long string of islands 

 extending from Georsetown in South Carolina to 

 St. Marys in Georgia, that is, from 32° 30' to 30° 

 north, a distance of about 200 miles. These isl- 

 ands were covered with live oak and other ever- 

 greens of a southern climate. They had been the 

 abode of the red men of the West, but rather 



when the natives were fishermen than hunters; 

 and the vast accumulation of oyster, and clam, and 

 other shells, mingled with the remains of the 

 bones and pottery of their old inhabitants, fill 

 every stranger with astonishment at the multitudes 

 which their remains would bespeak, or the long 

 time that must have been required to introduce 

 such accumulated masses. These decaying shells 

 seem to have intermingled with the original sandy 

 soils of these islands, and digesting the vegetable 

 matter that fell from trees and other sources, form- 

 ed with them a light and fertile loam. These isl- 

 ands at an earlier period of colonial story, had 

 been employed in -growing indigo. It was upon 

 two of these islands, surrounded by the salt waters 

 of the sea, and separated from the continent by 

 several miles of grassy but salt meadows, that the 

 cultivation of the sea island cotton commenced. 



If Frederick the Great, never forgot him that 

 introduced abetter description of rye into Prussia, 

 and if Swift is right in saying he merits a great 

 name who will make two blades of grass grow 

 where one had grown before, why should we 

 deny to the dead what may be their due? The 

 first cultivators of the sea island cotton in Georgia, 

 were Josiah Tattnall, and Nicholas Turnbull, on 

 Skideway island near Savannah; James Spalding 

 and Alexander Bisset, upon St. Simon's island at 

 the mouth of the Altamaha; and Richard Leake 

 upon Jekyl island adjacent to St. Simons. — For 

 many years after the introduction of the Anguilla 

 cotton, it Avas confined to the warm highland of 

 these islands, bathed by the saline atmosphere, 

 and surrounded by the salt water of the sea. 

 Gradually, however, the cotton culture was ex- 

 tended into lower grounds, and beyond the limits of 

 the islands to the adjacent shores of the continent 

 — into soils containing a mixture of clay, and lastly 

 into coarse clays, deposited by the gi'eat rivers 

 where they met the tides of the sea. In all these 

 soils the cotton plant grows well. In all these soils 

 fine cottons are j^roduced. The only essential pro- 

 perty that is required, is a saline atmosphere: with 

 it any soil in Georgia or Carolina may produce 

 fine cotton — without it no soil will produce fine 

 cotton. 



It is within this district of countiy, from George- 

 town in South Carolina to St. Marys in Georgia, 

 and extending not more than fifteen miles from the 

 sea, to Avhich the sea island cotton is still confined. 

 Whenever it has been carried either south, or 

 north, or west beyond these limits, a certain de- 

 cline in quality has followed its removal. Many 

 changes have taken place in the manner of culti- 

 vating the sea island cotton since the first intro- 

 duction. When first introduced, the seed was de- 

 posited either in hills raised a little above the com- 

 mon surface at five feet distant each way, or in 

 holes at the same distance apart, and the interme- 

 diate spaces were dug up, pulverized and kept free 

 of grass or weeds bylhe hand hoe or by ploughing. 

 But it was soon found that this distant planting, 

 with a few seeds only, left a great portion of the 

 field unoccupied by plants, and consequently unpro- 

 ductive; for as it lias already been said, the cotton 

 plant is one of the tenderest productions of vegeta- 

 ble life. The growers of cotton found it therefore 

 necessary to increase the quantity of seed, to in- 

 sure a sufficient number of plants, and to bring 

 them nearer together. Fortunately for the cotton 

 culture, TuH's book upon husbandry had been 



