GOSSYPIUM. 



GOSSYPIUM. 



cotton culture, where congeniality of soil and 

 climate to this commodity increases the pro- 

 duct per acre, far beyond the average in the 

 old cotton States. This consequently reduces 

 the yalue far below those prices which former- 

 ly poured so much wealth into the Southern 

 States. These newly cleared lands yield, on 

 an average, 2500 Ibs. of cotton per hand, whilst 

 the lands in the Carolinas yield but 1200 Ibs. 

 per hand. As the expenses on a labourer are 

 about the same in either place, this home com- 

 petition must be almost ruinous to the old cot- 

 ton States, to say nothing of that which is 

 threatened abroad in India, South America, and 

 Egypt. In a recent speech in Congress, Mr. 

 Dix.ui H. Lewis declared that cotton, divested 

 of government embarrassments, mightbe raised 

 in Alabama for three cents a pound. (Southern 

 Review for April, 1843.) 



There were formerly three species of cotton 

 commonly cultivated in the United States : 1. 

 The Green Seed (G. hcrbareurn), popularly and 

 commercially called Upland Cotton ; 2. The 

 Black Seed, producing a fine, soft, long, and 

 strong cotton, of a good staple. This, from its 

 flourishing in the lower country, and especially 

 the islands on the coast of South Carolina and 

 Georgia, has been called the Sea Island cotton. 

 It is regarded as a variety of the Arboreum or 

 Tree Cotton, and on new alluvial soils, in warm 

 situations, is found to live 4 or 5 years, and 

 attain a height of 18 feet, assuming the charac- 

 ter of trees rather than shrubs. But when the 

 cotton grows so large, it yields no adequate re- 

 turn to the cultivator. The seed of Sea Island 

 cotton was originally obtained from the Ba- 

 hama Islands about the year 1785, being the 

 kind known in the West Indies as the Anguilla 

 cotton. 



Of late years, in addition to the Nankin or 

 yellow cotton, two species or varieties of up- 

 land cotton have been introduced, which, in 

 some places, have almost superseded the com- 

 mon green seed kind ; these are the Mexican 

 and Petit-Gulf, both of which agree in most of 

 their botanical characteristics with the Hirsute 

 or hairy cotton, especially in the rough stem 

 and petiole. The Petit-Gulf kind is exceed- 

 ingly productive, and differs from the Mexican 

 chiefly in this characteristic, and in maturing 

 earlier, a great desideratum with the planter, 

 since it allows him a longer time to gather the 

 crop. Some think the Petit-Gulf a mere variety 

 of the Mexican, improved by its transportation 

 to the banks of the- Mississippi, where the soil 

 and climate are peculiarly favourable to its 

 developement. The planters of the upland 

 sections have to purchase their Petit-Gulf seed 

 from the neighbourhood of Rodney, where it 

 now costs only 25 cents per bushel. The 4th 

 year after removal from this locality, it has 

 so degenerated as to be no more productive 

 than the common green-seed kind, or better in 

 quality. 



It has been remarked, that in most if not all 

 the species or varieties of cotton cultivated in 

 the United States, especially the herbaceous 

 and hairy kinds, the close, short fur imme- 

 diately enveloping the seed, somewhat anala- 

 gous to the fur on an animal, has a tendency 

 to increase in quantity. T^is, though it tends 

 MS 



to render the separation of the long wool more 

 difficult, has no other disadvantage. 



The introduction of the plough, of the horse- 

 hoe, cultivator, and other contrivances for 

 saving labour and improving the culture, have 

 been of great service to the cotton as well as 

 to the corn-planter. By the practice of drill- 

 ing in rows set wide apart, the same fields may 

 be cultivated frequently without such rapid 

 exhaustion as would attend a different course. 

 The land is thus tilled sometimes three suc- 

 cessive years without rest, the drills being run 

 at first 4$ feet apart, the position of the drill- 

 rows being changed every year, so that the 

 cotton does not occupy the same place two 

 successive years. At the end of the 3d year 

 the 3 drill-rows will be 1 feet distant from 

 each other, and thus the growing crop is an- 

 nually furnished with fresh soil. 



The following account of the cotton culture, 

 as conducted in the Southern States, is abridged 

 from a highly interesting essay upon the sub- 

 ject by Mr. Thomas Spaulding, of Sapelo Island, 

 Georgia : 



"It was soon noticed by cotton growers," says 

 Mr. Spaulding, "that soil and situation had 

 more than common influence, as well upon the 

 quality as upon the quantity of cotton produced 

 upon any given portion of land. Certain soils 

 and situations retained in the cotton its ori- 

 ginal appearance, an intenseness of yellow in 

 its blossom, a fruit full and sound, a seed 

 quite black, and free from fur or down ; while 

 upon other soils and upon other situations the 

 plant, the flower, and fruit was putting on other 

 appearances. The plants, as if anxious to ad- 

 just themselves to a new temperature, took on 

 a more coarse configuration of limbs and stem, 

 a thicker branch, a rougher, larger, and more 

 scalloped leaf, a more cone-like pod, a seed 

 covered either in whole or at its points with 

 the close down or fur that has already been 

 described. At first the most careful cultiva- 

 tors were anxious by selection to keep the seed 

 as much as possible resembling the seed first 

 introduced ; that is, black and free from down, 

 and the more so as it was most easily sepa- 

 rated from the cotton by the machines em- 

 ployed, and was considered most productive ; 

 but in process of time the varieties that stole 

 up among the original stock was found to pro- 

 duce a finer and more uniform and longer 

 wool. The current of selection has now, 

 therefore, directed itself another way, and 

 these hybrids, for I believe them to be so, 

 : although the germs of these changes may have 

 I lingered for ages in the original seed without 

 developing themselves, have taken on three 

 distinct appearances in seed; neither in blos- 

 som or plant differing to the eye from each 

 other, although greatly differing from the pa- 

 ' rent stock, as being coarser and rougher in 

 their form and leaf, with blossoms of a lighter 

 yellow ; having bolls larger and more cone- 

 like in their shape. The finer cottons of the 

 sea islands are obtained from these three va- 

 rieties of seed ; one with little or no down upon 

 it, but with a long beak or point, to a seed 

 longer than the original; a seed with down 

 upon the two ends, but still with the powited 

 beak; and, thirdly, a long seed with a sharp 



