GOSSYPIUM. 



GOSSYPIUM. 



as exclusively cultivated by the plough, as the 

 sea island cotton is exclusively cultivated by 

 the hoe. The manner of treating the plant is 

 really the same ; the hoe dressing the land 

 more neatly and garden-like, the plough break- 

 ing up the land more radically, and extending 

 far more widely its operation for the quantity 

 of force employed. The consequence has 

 been, that while 4 English acres is the quan- 

 tity cultivated upon the sea-coast of Georgia 

 and Carolina with the hand-hoe, 8 acres is 

 about the quantity cultivated of short staple 

 cotton, in the interior, with the plough. It is 

 the ridge husbandry in both instances that is 

 now pursued ; more neatly executed, in the 

 first instance, by the hoe, and more roughly by 

 the plough in the second, but still the same. 

 The month of April is the best time of plant- 

 ing either variety. The distance between the 

 ridges is most generally 5 feet, the plants left 

 in the drills varying from 6 to 24 inches, de- 

 pendent, as before stated, upon the expected 

 growth of the plants. Two other circum- 

 stances contributed to aid the cultivation of 

 short staple, extrinsic of soil or real products. 

 The winds of autumn are far more violent 

 upon the sea-coast of Georgia and Carolina, 

 than in the interior country, and the capsules 

 that contain the sea island cotton expand more 

 than those that contain the short staple, so that 

 the first has to be gathered much more fre- 

 quently from the fields than the last, or it fall> 

 to the ground and is lost. The consequence 

 is, the general gathering to the labourer per 

 day is more than twice the quantity of short 

 staple than of sea island, for it is allowed to 

 hang upon the plants until they are white with 

 the open cotton, so that there is only 2, and 

 at best 3, gatherings of the one, to 10 or 12 

 scanty gleanings of the other. This one cir- 

 cumstance, more than any other, gives to the 

 grower of short staple cotton the power of 

 something more than duplicating the quantity 

 of cotton wool produced by the same quantity 

 of labour expended. 



"Cottons of various kinds grow well, and 

 perfect their fruit, from the southern borders 

 of Virginia to the southwestern streams of the 

 Mississippi, a space of 1200 miles, and from 

 the sea for 200 miles into the interior; through 

 this wide space of country, in every soil, 

 whether of clay, or loam, or even sand, the cot- 

 ton plant will grow, and produce its seed and 

 wool, its accompaniment, provided the waters 

 are kept well drained from the surface of the 

 land. The quantity of products will of course 

 depend upon the soils, whatever they may be, 

 containing these ingredients, which constitute 

 fertility in all countries, which neither experi- 

 ment or the philosophy of chemistry has yet 

 been able fully to discover or define. The 

 mean quantity given of 100 pounds of sea 

 island cotton wool to the English acre, and of 

 125 pounds of short staple cotton to the same 

 quantity of land, we believe not materially 

 wrong, but the quantity of labour to bring forth 

 these results are very different. The sea island 

 cotton is cultivated neatly by the hoe, the short 

 staple more roughly by the plough ; still, it is, 

 or should be, the ridge husbandry in both in- 

 stances. The plants are left to stand in drills 



upon the ridge, at distances from each other, 

 graduated as before stated, to the expected 

 growth of the plants from 6 inches to 2 feet 

 from each other, and bearing, without injury, 

 to stand much nearer than at first sight may 

 be imagined, for the cotton plant does not oc- 

 cupy much space with its roots, sending them 

 down into the ground, and not over the surface, 

 like white or grain crops, and drawing like all 

 large-leaved green crops, much of its nourish- 

 ment from the atmosphere. It is not an ex- 

 hauster of soil, shading and protecting it from, 

 the sun, and soon, by its decay or by its com- 

 bustion, returning almost as much as it has 

 taken away ; but from the density of its shade, 

 and the size and swell of its roots, it soon, 

 makes the soil too loose to sustain the plant, 

 and the continued culture of the same soil, 

 brings on a disease in the plant greatly resem- 

 bling the blight in wheat, and leaving a pro- 

 pensity in the seeds of cotton to extend the 

 evil, like the propensity in blighted wheat to 

 extend and multiply ; nor have I ever doubted 

 that in both instances the evil had originated 

 in insect depredations, for although Sir Joseph 

 Hank> discovered a fungous attaching itself to 

 blighted wheat, I still believe that the micro- 

 scope discovered in that minute parasitic 

 plant the effects of injury previously received 

 from something that lived and moved and had 

 animal being. Fire, therefore, I have always 

 believed, and have always acted upon that be- 

 lief, is the best security against this increasing 

 and extending evil; all the weeds and grass 

 that are on the land should be burnt upon the 

 surface of the land, leaving no vegetable mat- 

 ter to conceal and protect the germ, and by 

 fermentation to give heat and life to it; it is 

 the neglect of this course which I think has 

 been the cause that this evil, under various 

 names, rot, and rust, and blight, has spread so 

 widely as it has done within a few years. 



"There is no plant that requires the inter- 

 changeable husbandry more than the cotton 

 plant, and there is no country where that hus- 

 bandry is more essential than in the Southern 

 States. The cotton requires continued clean- 

 ing during the droughts of spring and the 

 heats of midsummer; these cleanings, together 

 with the shade and rapid growth of the plant, 

 break up the soil, and leave it to be carried 

 away by the first violent autumnal rains. The 

 best remedy is to give to the fields of cotton in- 

 termediate crops of grain; as good a series as 

 can well be adopted is cotton, rye, and wheat 

 (where the soil is fit for it), pasture, and again 

 cotton. A more extended rotation might be 

 adopted, but as all root crops should be avoid- 

 ed in series with cotton, this simple tri-annual 

 course, with manure applied during the grain 

 year, to as great extent as may be convenient, 

 will keep the field without material decay. 

 When cotton was first introduced, the growers 

 were misled as to the necessity of this change, 

 by observing that the cotton plant, upon new 

 lands, grew large, and gave little fruit, and 

 that it improved for the second and third year 

 in productiveness, they unfortunately pushed 

 the culture too far, until possibly to this cause 

 many of the diseases that have afflicted it in 

 its growth may be attributed. 



555 



