268 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



the cultivation of this plant was still confined almost entirely to 

 the tide-water region of the states of Virginia, Maryland, Georgia 

 and the Carolinas. Even within this region its culture was by no 

 means general. The greatest production came from the southern 

 portion, especially from Georgia, where the sea-island or long- 

 staple variety had been introduced seven years before. But, 

 although it excelled all other varieties as a marketable commodity, 

 the sea-island cotton was subject to narrow geographical limitations, 

 and all efforts to produce it at a distance from the seacoast proved 

 futile. The upland planters, therefore, found themselves restricted 

 to the cultivation of the green-seed cotton, a short-staple variety, 

 but little known to Southern planters previous to the Revolution. 

 This variety of cotton seems to be the result of a crossing of the 

 Hcrbaceum, of Eastern origin, with the Hirsutum, probably of 

 Western origin. Experiments made with its cultivation had already 

 shown it to have advantages over the black-seed varieties as re- 

 spects yield and method of cultivation, and Whitney's invention 

 had at last removed the only hindrance which, since the Revolu- 

 tion, had prevented the planters from producing it as a marketable 

 commodity. From Augusta as a center and chief market the 

 culture of the short-staple cotton spread throughout the upland 

 districts of Georgia and South Carolina. For more than a quarter 

 of a century this continued to be the principal cotton-producing 

 region of the country ; as late as 1820 over one-half of the entire 

 crop grown was raised in these two states alone. 



The success of the cotton growers of Georgia and South 

 Carolina now led the states to the north of them, Virginia and 

 North Carolina, to attempt the production of this staple. Miller 

 and Whitney sold their patent right to the saw-gin within the state 

 of North Carolina to that state in December, 1802. At this time 

 the culture of cotton had made but little progress within this 

 state. But although the production of the staple continued to 

 increase in both North Carolina and Virginia, its culture made no 

 such rapid progress as in the states to the south and west of them. 

 There was comparatively little land suited to the production of 

 cotton, and the climate was less propitious than it was farther 

 south. The danger that the frosts would come before the plant 



