COTTON. 



pie more than twenty-five pounds of 

 cotton per day during the picking 

 season. 



" Preparation for the Market. — The 

 Sea-Island cotton is now almost ex- 

 clusively separated from its seed by 

 the foot-gin : two wooden rollers, 

 placed the one over the other in a 

 frame. The rollers are one inch in 

 diameter, about a foot long, and are 

 inserted in an iron journal supported 

 by the frame ; upon this journal a 

 fly-wheel thirty inches in diameter is 

 placed ; the journal, after passing 

 through the fly-wheel, has a crank, 

 to which the treadle worked by the 

 foot is attached : the fly-wheel is to 

 give a circular motion by the tread 

 of the foot. This gin generally sep- 

 arates twenty-five pounds of cotton 

 per day to one hand. The whole la- 

 bour of preparing a bag of three hun- 

 dred pounds of cotton, in sorting the 

 cotton for the gin, in ginning, and in 

 moting after the gin, in again exam- 

 ining it, and in packing, my friend 

 Mr. Seabrook, of South Carolma, puts 

 down at fifty-four days' work. I 

 have estimated it at sixty. Thus a 

 bale of cotton worth 860 has cost, 

 after the cotton has been gathered 

 into the house, sixty days' labour. 



" Locality of Sea-Island Cotton, Ori- 

 ginal Growth of the Lands, and Abori- 

 gines. — The Sea-Island cotton of the 

 best quality is grown upon islands 

 bounded by the sea on one side, and 

 to the west by salt rivers and salt 

 marsh. These islands extend from 

 Charleston, in South Carolma, to the 

 River St. John's, in Florida, including 

 the whole coast of Georgia. This 

 space may be considered two hun- 

 dred and fifty miles, between wliich 

 points there is a safe navigation tor 

 open boats, and for dragging vessels 

 of one hundred tons' capacity. These 

 islands were originally almost exclu- 

 sively covered with live oak, and from 

 them the navy of the United States 

 has been entirely built. These live 

 oak groves once swarmed with Indian 

 tribes, who communed with Sir Wal- 

 ter Raleigh and General Oglethorpe 

 with confidence and Iriendship. Ev- 

 erywhere you find barrens scattered 

 204 



through the cotton fields, constructed 

 exclusively of oyster shells. Indian 

 bones and Indian pottery, and other 

 remains, tell distinctly here, in ages 

 passed, that the red man lived and 

 died. 



" Healthiness of Climate. — Volney, 

 in his American tour, says that 'tlie 

 climate of this coast is the best in 

 the United States, from Rhode Isl- 

 and south,' and this my own expe- 

 rience confirms ; carrying more men 

 into old age than any other I know 

 of Here, too, has been little change 

 of inhabitants for one hundred years 

 past, the son clinging to the home of 

 his childhood and to the grave of his 

 father." 



The Gin and Whipper are concisely 

 described by Mr. Spalding. 



" The whipper, which is a very ne- 

 cessary instrument in the well pre- 

 paring of cotton, is made of wood, is 

 a long barrel composed of slats or 

 reeds (or it would be better made of 

 wire) six or eight feet in length, and 

 two feet in diameter, with one end 

 closed and the other open, and is sup- 

 ported at the two ends by feet of dif- 

 ferent lengths, so that the barrel, in 

 its horizontal position, declines al)out 

 one foot at the lower end ; a hopper 

 containing about a bushel rests upon 

 the upper side of the barrel, at the 

 upper enclosed end of it. This hop- 

 per lets the cotton that is to be clean- 

 ed fall into the barrel, through v.iiich 

 runs in its whole length a shall, 

 which is turned by the hand by a 

 crank attached to the shaft at one 

 end. This shaft is intersected by 

 rods which reach to within an inch 

 of the barrel. The cotton, as it falls 

 from the hopper, is whirled round by 

 these rods until it escapes at the low- 

 er end of the barrel, by which time 

 any sand, or dirt, or leaves, or other 

 matter attached to the cotton has es- 

 caped through the spaces intention- 

 ally left between the slats or reeds, 

 which constitute the external rim of 

 this barrel or whipper. This whip- 

 ping was formerly performed as well 

 upon the cotton in the seed as after 

 it was separated from the seed ; but 

 the second operation of the whipper 



