BLACK OAK AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 23 



1 786. The native place of the seed is beheved to 

 be Persia. The first bag exported from Georgia 

 was grown on St. Simon's Island in the year 1788. 

 The black-seed cotton region of the State is 

 bounded on the north and northwest by a line 

 a few miles south of the line that separates Barn- 

 well and Orangeburg from the neighboring par- 

 ishes ; on the northeast and east by the Santee 

 River, on the west and southwest by the Savannah 

 River. It formerly was cultivated both in Williams- 

 burg and Sumter districts, in their southern por- 

 tions. 



The crops were sufficiently encouraging, but the 

 preparation of the wool was objectionable ; the 

 growers abandoned the experiment on account 

 of the large expenditure of labor and time that it 

 required. 



The first attempt in South Carolina to raise a 

 crop of long cotton was made in 1788, by Mr. 

 Kinsey Burden, of St. Paul's Parish. The product 

 was packed in the article called Hessians. In 1780, 

 when England had no fine manufactories, the best 

 cottons brought to her market were from Demerara 

 and Surinam. These then commanded about two 

 shillings. These were superseded by the sea 

 islands, which in i 799 sold readily at five shillings 

 per pound. Its price in this State in the infancy of 

 its production was generally from ninepence to two 

 shillings, until 1806 or 1807, when for the first time 



