16 THE COTTON PLAtfT. 



1794 the amount rose to 1,601,700 pounds. The 

 cause of this tremendous increase, and the still 

 greater increase that followed, was the invention, 

 in 1793, of the cotton gin. 



The cotton fibre grows on the seed, and is firmly 

 adherent to the testa. To separate seed and fibre 

 by hand had been a slow and laborious task. The 

 cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney, was a machine 

 by means of which, as Mr. George Emerson has 

 said, "a new era in the culture of cotton was 

 established, three hands assisted by water power 

 being now able to separate, in the same time, as 

 much cotton from its seed as would before have 

 required three thousand pairs of hands." 



At that time the planting, the hoeing, and the 

 gathering of the cotton crop was the work of the 

 Southern negroes. They also prepared the fibre 

 for the market. The cotton gin, while relieving 

 them of the latter task, increased the demand for 

 their services in the fields ; for, as immense quanti- 

 ties of cotton could now be furnished to all parts 

 of the United States and Europe, a large supply 

 must be sown and tended. It was a striking in- 

 stance of the action of machinery in cutting down 

 the sum of hand labor required at one point only 

 to raise it an hundred-fold at another. Field- 



