PICKING COTTON 



293 



and tried, but they pick so much trash, such as boll-bracts and 

 leaves, that none of them are yet very extensively used. Picking 

 the cotton by hand is usually cleaner, although the harvest is 

 slow and expensive. Negro labor is used. The season is a joyous 

 one for the pickers and the singing of southern melodies adds 

 charm to the operation and takes away the monotony of work. 

 A good picker has nimble fingers and passes rapidly along the 

 rows picking the locks of cotton with the seeds from the open 

 bolls. About one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred pounds 

 of seed cotton is a day's work. This is placed in bags hanging from 



FIG. 193. Upland cotton in Mississippi, ready to harvest. The yield is very promising. 



(U. S. D. A.) 



the shoulder of the picker, who is usually paid according to the 

 amount picked. The prices paid to pickers vary according to the 

 scarcity of labor, the character of the yield, and the evenness 

 with which the crop matures. The price per hundred pounds of 

 seed cotton varies from forty to eighty cents, or may be even 

 higher in some localities. 



Two or perhaps three pickings are made, the first beginning in 

 August or early September. Varieties which mature evenly and 

 early, as in figure 193, may be harvested by October, but cotton- 

 picking often continues through November and perhaps into 

 December. Late picking subjects the crop to loss by wind and 



