22 SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 



average at Ward's plantation for the six years (I 

 planted it in coarse cotton) was one hundred and 

 twenty-three pounds per acre, from the year 1850 

 to 1856 inclusive. 

 \ In the accounts current published in the gazettes 

 of 1792 the article of cotton does not appear, yet 

 it is evident that even at a much earlier date it was 

 vended in Charleston in small parcels varying from 

 one to thirty pounds. In 1787 two or three bags, 

 about one hundred pounds each, were packed by 

 Mr. S. Maverick and shipped to England as a sam- 

 ple and experiment. The answer of the consignees 

 was discouraging. It is not worth producing, said 

 they, as it cannot be separated from the seed. 



In 1794 Col. Wm. Thomson, of revolutionary 

 memory, planted cotton for market at Belleville, in 

 St. Matthew's Parish. In i 796 cultivators of the crop 

 appeared in several parts of the State. It was first 

 grown in the district of Sumter by John Mayrant, 

 in 1798. The year afterwards Gen. Wade Hamp- 

 ton introduced the plant into Richland district. 

 With the energy and sagacity which distinguished 

 him, he began his operations on an extensive scale, 

 and from six hundred acres he gathered over six 

 hundred bags. Although not the first to use 

 Whitney's gin in South Carolina, he was the first 

 who used water as the propelling power. 



Sea island, or black-seed cotton beean to be 

 raised in Georgia in experimental quantities in 



