GOSSYPIUM. 



GOSSYPIUM. 



bags each required from 4 to 4 yards, and 

 then are made to receive 300 pounds of cotton. 

 Two men are generally employed at a time in 

 packing, and usually pack two bags in a day, 

 in the manner following. The room into 

 which the cotton has finally passed, after being 

 prepared for the bag, is reserved expressly for 

 that purpose, and is kept as clean in floor and 

 walls as possible ; adjoining to it is a small 

 apartment under the same cover, with a round 

 hole made in the floor just large enough to con- 

 tain the bag when full of cotton ; the open end 

 of the empty bag is strongly sewed with twine, 

 round a strong hoop, which, extending beyond 

 the hole, suspends the bag vertically from it ; 

 one of the men then gets into the bag, and with 

 a heavy wooden or iron pestle he presses the 

 cotton gradually with his feet, and finally beats 

 it down with the pestle until the requisite 

 quantity is pressed down into the bag. The 

 bags were formerly made wet before they began 

 to fill them, under the belief that it kept the 

 cotton down in the bag, when pressed there, 

 better than when dry, but this is an idle and 

 often an injurious practice, and should be al- 

 ways avoided. We will now look back and 

 collect the quantities of labour that is or should 

 be applied to every bale of 300 pounds of sea 

 island cotton in preparing it for market. It re- 

 quires 1000 pounds of seed cotton to produce 

 300 pounds of clean white cotton wool; 15 

 persons will be required to sort and prepare 

 this 1000 pounds for the gin or machine; taking 

 all weather 25 pounds is the mean quantity 

 received from each gin per day; this gives 12 

 days' labour to each bag for ginning, and 10 

 women mote these 300 pounds of cotton in the 

 day, making for sorting 15, for ginning 12, for 

 moting 10, for packing 1, in all 38. But be- 

 sides these 38 that must be good and steady 

 persons, there are usually two inferior persons, 

 young or old, to place the cotton which is about 

 to be ginned upon the drying floor, or to re- 

 move and pass it about in any change of wea- 

 ther, thus requiring to every bag of sea island 

 cotton well put up the labour of 40 persons 1 

 day. The bag costs for bagging, for twine, 

 and trouble in making, not less than $1 25 of 

 American money ; this, with 75 cents for 

 freight, is to be subtracted from the value of 

 cotton, as there is never any return made for 

 the bag by the purchaser. 



" The quantity of sea island cotton has not 

 materially increased within these last 10 years, 

 nor is it likely that it will increase. The par- 

 ticular soils and climate that have heretofore 

 produced it, and to which it probably owes its 

 quality, are confined to the limits first stated, 

 that is, from Georgetown, in South Carolina, to 

 St. Mary's, in Georgia. By looking at a map 

 of the United States, it will be seen that the 

 long string of islands that bound our southern 

 shore, and separate the Atlantic Ocean from 

 the continent, end at these points ; but what is 

 more, the tides that probably assisted to cast up 

 these islands, have changed their climate. 

 The tides along the shores of North Carolina 

 and Virginia, are much less than in Georgia, 

 and they rise still less in Florida and the 

 Gulf of Mexico, that bounds the new acquired 



." 



provinces of the American Union to the 

 ! southwest. 



" Whether it is that the cultivation of the 

 sea island cotton has afforded fewer induce- 

 ments than other subjects of cultivation, certain 

 it is that the number of those engaged in it, even 

 within these limited districts, have not greatly 

 increased, and it is the successors of the first 

 cultivators that are still engaged upon this ob- 

 ject. They are generally an educated people, 

 ! and a stationary one, less anxious after change 

 than their countrymen are supposed to be ; 

 and although severely smitten in war by Eng- 

 land, and, in peace, by the National Tariff, 

 they have still clung, with some degree of 

 fondness, to the places whereat they were 

 born, and to the seas in which they were bred. 

 " Short Staple Cotton. The short staple cot- 

 tons, of every part of the United States, are de- 

 rived from the first and second varieties of cot- 

 ton which were found in the United States, from 

 Virginia to Georgia, at the close of the Ameri- 

 can revolutionary war, cultivated in small 

 quantities by the poorer classes of the white 

 population of the country, to be mixed, in their 

 domestic manufactories, with their own wool. 

 The cotton for this purpose was separated from 

 the seed by the old and the young with their fin- 

 gers, sitting around their evening fire, and 

 was spun by the hand wheel, to serve as a 

 warp, to be filled with the wool of their own 

 sheep. 



" As soon as the attention of the Southern 

 States was called to the profitable cultivation 

 of cotton, by a few persons along the shores 

 of Georgia and Carolina, the cultivation began 

 to be extended into the interior. The small 

 quantity of cotton that had been grown for do- 

 mestic uses, was exchanged for larger quanti- 

 ties, to be prepared for sale. But the great 

 difficulty to be overcome in the progress to ex- 

 tension, was to find out any instrument by 

 which the cotton wool could be separated from 

 the seed. 



"By this time various machines had been 

 introduced for ginning the sea island cotton, 

 but all of them ended at last in two rollers re- 

 volving upon each other, either longer or 

 shorter, and moving with, some more, some 

 less, velocity. Those rollers were but badly 

 adapted to the hairy cotton, or second variety, 

 which soon began to obtain the preference in 

 the interior of Georgia and South Carolina, 

 over the first or smooth-leaved variety, and 

 merited to obtain that preference, as giving 

 when separated from its downy seed, a finer 

 and stronger, although shorter fibre, and as 

 perfecting its fruit sooner, but which it was 

 almost impossible to separate with the rollers, 

 because the down or fur upon the seed retained 

 the seed hanging upon the roller, and denied 

 admission to the rollers of the fresh cotton in 

 I the seed that was offered. Many plans were 

 I suggested, many substitutes for the rollers de- 

 signed. All succeeded in part, but still they 

 went on slow. Something was desired to 

 do much in a short time ; something that was 

 strong enough to travel about without being 

 j broken to pieces, and light enough to move 

 i with its moving master. At last such a thing 

 3 A 553 



