356 



FARMERS' REGISTER— COTTON CULTURE. 



more read in the southern colonies than in Eng- 

 land; and his ridge husbandry was adopted for sea 

 island cotton, and is particularly adapted to it, 1 

 may say necessary to its successllil culture. 



i :i I resent process, (and it has been the same 

 for twenty-five years past,) is to make up the field 

 into ridges occuj)ying five feet of space each, and 

 extending in straight lines across the entire field. 

 li the laud IS at all low or subject in any degree to 

 water, these ridges are intersected at one hundred 

 and five feet from each other by ditches which re- 

 ceive the water that may collect in the hollow 

 spaces upon which the cotton plant is growing. 

 These hollow spaces represent the water fiirrow in 

 wheat cultivation, and serve the same purpose, 

 that is, in directing the redundant water that falls, 

 into the drains that take it ofi'the fields. 



A field is well prepared to receive the cotton 

 seed when drains intersect it at regular distances 

 of" one hundred and five feet; when the surface of 

 the land is thrown up mto ridges of five feet, 

 rising about ten inches above the intervals, the 

 crown of the ridge flat, broad and regular. A 

 trench is then mad.e along the middle of the ridge 

 from two to four inches, dependent upon the time 

 of planting, which extends from the first of March 

 to the first of May. Upon this subject as upon all 

 others in which men are concerned, wisdom is 

 found between the extremes; and experienced 

 growers ol cotton generally prefer planting from 

 the first to the fifteenth of April. When cotton is 

 planted early in March, before the sun has warm- 

 ed the soil to any great depth, it is necessary to 

 deposite the seed in drills not more than two inches 

 deep, or there will not be warmth enough to vege- 

 tate the seed. Later m the season when the pow- 

 er of the sun has increased, it is necessary, iii seek- 

 inff for that moisture which is as requisite for 

 vegetation as heat itseltj to sink deeper into the 

 soil, and the drills which are then made to receive 

 the cotton seed are required to be four inches deej). 

 From the many accidents to which this feeble 

 plant is subject in its first growth, experience has 

 taught the Georgia cultivator that it is necessary 

 to place many more seeds in the ground than can 

 oTow there; and it is usual therefore to sow at least 

 one bushel of cotton seed to the English acre. 

 The persons employed in planting the cotton are 

 generally divided into gangs of three. One of 

 these opens the drill along the top of the ridge; the 

 most intelligent of them carefully drops the seed 

 into the trench, while the third follows in his, or 

 more often in her steps, and with a hand hoe re- 

 turns the soil while yet moist into the trench from 

 whence it was taken. For myself" I prefer per- 

 forming this operation with the foot; it is less trou- 

 blesome to the laborer than carrying and using the 

 hoe. It keeps the mind intent upon one operation 

 rather than two. Walking along erect, the feet 

 are alternately employed to return the soil into the 

 trench upon the cotton seed; and the whole weight 

 of the person brought to bear upon the foot that 

 has just performed the operation, presses the 

 yielding and crumbling soil into close compact with 

 the seed. This pressure of the foot after sowing, 

 is like the roller in English husbandry, and is as 

 beneficial to cotton as the roller is known to be to 

 wheat or other grain. But after all this care, you 

 are never sure that from your first sowing a suffi- 

 cient number of plants will stand. One night's 

 frostj which soraotimes comes as late as April, 



will destroy the whole field, and drive you back 

 upon your labors; one day of a strong, dry, north 

 east wuid will tear, blight, and destroy your whole 

 field; and upon the best and richest soils, when 

 both these evils are passed over, there is another 

 ensuing, equally destructive. The cock chaffer or 

 cut worm is to be apprehended during all the 

 month of" Ajiril, and as the cotton comes through 

 the ground and remains for several days, like the 

 pea or other pulse, with but two radical leaves, 

 every one of the plants that are cut by the worm, 

 either above or below the ground, are destro^-ed; so 

 that it is not uni"requent tliat whole fields have to 

 be replanted in the month of May; about which 

 time the worms pass into their winged state. At 

 the close of the month of IMay, when apprehen- 

 sion from these acculents have passed away, a 

 new labor begins. The numerous plants which 

 crowd the ground, begin to injure each other and 

 must be removed. Prudent persons divide their 

 removal into three operations, gradually adjusting 

 the number to the increased growth of the plants, 

 which are at length let"t in the drills, at from six 

 inches to twenty-fjur inches apart from each other, 

 depending upon the fertility of the soil and the ex- 

 pected growth of the plant, which rises in altitude, 

 from three feet to eight feet high. And here it 

 may be well to observe, that the cotton plant is a 

 leguminous plant, (a green plant,) a plant that 

 sends its roots down into the ground, and draws 

 much of its nourishment, by its broad leaves, from 

 ihe atmosphere. This increased distance in the 

 drill, therelbre, is rather to allow space for the 

 plant to extend itself at its inclination, than from a 

 desire to add nourishment to its roots, for at last 

 the whole field should be shaded from the sun 

 when the plants are fully grown, and the number 

 should be adapted to that end. 



But at every one of these thinnings as they are 

 called, or drawing of" the plants, the field is cleared 

 with the hand hoe from all weeds and grass, and 

 new soil brought up around the remaining plants 

 to support them, now bending to every whid, from 

 their tall but f"eeble structure. This course of 

 thinning when it is necessary, and the weeding, 

 and grassing, and draAving up, which is always 

 necessary, continues until about the 20th July, 

 by which time the operation has been repeated 

 from three to six several times, dependent upon the 

 soil and season. About the 20lh July we may 

 expect our summer rains should commence. These 

 rains are not tropical, but they approach to tropi- 

 cal in their violence. Up to that time no climate 

 can be more temperate than the climate of the sea 

 coasts of Georgia and Carolina. Volney, from 

 report, supposed it the best in the United States, 

 and the writer of this paper believes it is so. The 

 atmosphere is elastic, the winds that blow every 

 day from the sea are cool and rei"reshing; they 

 bring health and healing upon their wings; they 

 drive the vapors which have been gathered upon 

 the waters, or that have arisen from the marshes 

 which margin the shores, over the woods of the 

 interior. But the time has now come when evil 

 spirits should prevail. These vapors have been 

 collecting dark and ponderous clouds upon our 

 western liills; the ef|uilibrium of our atmosphere 

 is destroyed. Whether it is that the adjacent seas 

 have become heated by the mass of warm water 

 which the gulf stream brings along the coast, or 

 that the same general cause which operates with 



