FARMERS' REGISTER— COTTON CULTURE. 



357 



Buch great power within the tropics, operates in 

 part here, I know not. But from tlie 20th July to 

 the 1st Auirust, ihe vtnit's change troni soutlicast 

 to soul li west and bring down clouds charived with 

 Hghlning and rain, in such masses as to deluge our 

 fields. From the time this change takes place all 

 labor in the cotton field should cease; for the 

 plants, with broad, succulent leaves, and tall and 

 slender stem, lieavy naturally, in its growth, 

 and feeble in its structure, can illy bear up against 

 beating rains and strong winds, and requires all 

 the support that the original ridge in which it was 

 planted, and the repeated dressings up which have 

 been directed, can give it. And hence arises the 

 neCessit}' of the ridge husbandry of the sea island 

 cotton, in Georgia and Carolina, and the import- 

 ance of the repeated gathering or dressing up of 

 the soil to the plants which has been described. 

 The month of August is a month of doubt and 

 anxiety with the cotton grower. Too much rain 

 makes the plant cast ofi'its fruit, its blossoms, and 

 even its leaves. The full moon in the month of 

 August too, is the time when the caterpillar is ex- 

 pected. This worm proceeds from a small brown 

 butterfly, greatly resembling the candle moth. 

 This moth or butterfly deposites its eggs upon the 

 leaf of the cotton plant always a night or two be- 

 fore the lull or change of the moon. They hatch 

 in a few hours after they are deposited, then so 

 Kmall as scarcely to be visible to the naked eye. 

 Like the silk worm, they appear to linger in their 

 first stages, doing no irreat injuiy during their first 

 nine or ten days. But a few days before they 

 have completed their growth, they become vora- 

 cious in the extreme, and like the visitations of the 

 locusts in the east, destroy whole fields in a few 

 days. We have seen four hundred acres of cot- 

 ton that looked promising and well to day, and 

 that four days afterwards had not a green leaf, 

 and scarcely a small pod remaining upon it. These 

 destructive visitations, judging fi'om the past, may 

 be expected once in about seven years. When 

 cotton fields have escaped injury fiotn rains, from 

 wind, or worms, they offer as beautiful a spectacle 

 to the observer, as the cultivation of any plant can 

 present. One ivide and waving field of green 

 leaves, covered fi-om the first day of July to the 

 first day of September with blossoms of three 

 colors, and with a multitude of pods of every 

 growth. The blossom on the first day of its 

 coming out is of a fine yellow color, and it sustains 

 that color during the day. It changes under the 

 influence of the night air to a crimson or red hue; 

 and asmn on the third day it becomes of a rich 

 chocolate brown, and failing to the ground leaves 

 a pod already of hall' an inch in diameter. The 

 time which intervenes from the blossoming to the 

 perfection of the fruit, a-reatly varies, depending 

 upon the season. We have marked hundreds of 

 blossoms which ripened and perfected their cotton 

 in twenty-one days from the day of blossominfi;; 

 and a^ain we have frequently seen them require 

 six weeks to arrive at the same end; which is how- 

 ever a bad omen, as to ultimate resuhs. 



The cotton pods begin to open about the first of 

 August. From this time to the first of December 

 the whole attention of the cultivator is directed to 

 the picking in of the cotton as the pods daily open. 

 During this autumnal season in Georgia and Car- 

 olina upon the sea coast, the winds are violent and 

 the raine heavy; bo that the operation in tedious . 



although not laborious; and during this time the 

 persons employed may be expected to gather from 

 the field 2-5 pounds per day, when the weather 

 admits of gathering or picking cotton as it is call- 

 ed. When every thing is favorable the persons 

 employed should brino- in 60 lbs. daily of cotton in 

 the seed; but as the gathering is continued so long 

 as they bring in 10 lbs. twenty-five may be consi- 

 dered the fiill average of labor so directed. There 

 are few subjects upon which there is more contra- 

 riety of" opinion than upon the real amount of pro- 

 duct given b_v the soil in any cultivation; agricultu- 

 rist as I am, loving my profession as I do, seeking 

 information to enlighten my labors as I have 

 done, I know no book upon which I can lay my 

 hand which would give me correctly the real 

 mean result of labor or of land employed upon any 

 one object throughout a whole extended district. 

 The Abbe Raynal kindly tells us how many coffee 

 |)lants and how niany cotton plants grew uj)on the 

 French part of the Island of St. Domingo; and 

 yet there was not one planter in St. Domingo who 

 could really have told how many cotton plants or 

 how many coffee plants grew upon any one arpent 

 of his own field. Taking however the best means 

 my long experience Avould give, I should say that 

 a laborer cuhivates, in sea island cotton, four Eng- 

 lish acres, and that these four acres yield as the 

 result of his labor 500 weight of clean cotton, or 

 cotton separated from the seed, which consists of 

 400 weight of white cotton and 100 weight of co- 

 lored or stained cotton; and that these 500 pounds 

 of clean cotton have for the last fifteen years aver- 

 aged to the grower 20 cents per pound for his 

 white cotton, and 10 cents per pound for his stain- 

 ed cotton, yielding in American money, conse- 

 quently -990 to the laborer — a small remuneration, 

 certainly, to the cultivator, and not calculated to 

 excite jealousy or hostility in any other persons 

 engaged in any other pursuit. 



The ^ ^process of preparins; sea island cotton for 

 market^ — The process in preparing the cotton for 

 market commences as soon as it is generally ga- 

 thered in from the field and is tedious and trouble- 

 some in a high degree — the cotton when gathered 

 from the plant, is put into a bag, containing about 

 a half bushel, which hangs upon the person en- 

 gaged in the operation, suspended from the neck 

 or waist as they may prefer, and when it is desired 

 by them they deposite the contents of the bag in 

 a large light basket, which contains the amount of 

 each one's gathering in the day. At the approach 

 of night, the cotton gathered in the day is brouorht 

 home and weitrhed and deposited in a common 

 house, from whence the next morning if the wea- 

 ther is good, it is carried out and spread upon dry- 

 ing floors, made of two inch American pine. These 

 floors are of course proportioned to the quantify of 

 cotton expected to be placed upon them at any 

 one time, but may be estimated at twenty by forty 

 feet of floor to every hundred acres of cotton cul- 

 tivated; and in that ratio of quantities upon these 

 floors. If it has been gathered from the fields in 

 good weather, the cotton is allowed to remain but 

 one day to take off the dew of the morning or the 

 damp of the night air; but if gathered in wet 

 weather, it may require two or even three days 

 exposure upon the drying floors, which are rai.sed 

 upon posts three feet from the ground, as well to 

 preserve the wood of which they are made, as to 

 admit a more free circulation of air. It is how- 



