SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 297 



" In the preparation of cotton for the market great advances 

 had been made previous to i860. The original methods of gin- 

 ning and packing were even more slovenly than the methods of 

 tillage. The invention of the saw-gin and of the M'Carthy roller" 

 gin revolutionized the methods of cleaning both the short- and 

 long-staple cottons, but the methods of packing and shipping for 

 many years lagged behind. During the operation of ginning no 

 bags or boxes received the cotton, and oftentimes large quantities 

 were thrown together until the inspectors were prepared to ex- 

 amine them. . . . There were no reinspectors of the cotton before 

 it was deposited in the bag, in which the spinner would frequently 

 find, in addition to a large supply of leaves and crushed seeds, 

 potato skins, parts of old garments, and occasionally a jackknife." 



During the later years of cotton culture under slavery the short- 

 staple cotton was put up in square bales and covered with jute or 

 hemp bagging. Nearly all of the large planters had their own gin 

 houses and presses, and the preparation of the cotton for market 

 thus being carried on directly under the supervision of the planter 

 or his manager was probably more carefully attended to than it 

 has been in later years when the competition of ginning establish- 

 ments has resulted in a cheapening of the cost of ginning at the 

 expense of the quality of the work done. But the plantation 

 presses did not sufficiently compress the bales for purposes of 

 export, and on the cotton arriving at the port cities, the bales 

 were still further compressed by steam compresses to about one- 

 half their former size. "There is no sufficient reason," wrote 

 Mr. Lyman, " why this neat and solid packing should not be done 

 at the plantations, thus saving the planter an expense of from 

 one to two dollars a bale now incurred at the shipping ports." 

 Even after this second compression, the American bales were 

 sent to Liverpool in a less neat and solid package than those 

 from the East Indies. 



The changes wrought in the political, economic and social con- 

 ditions of the South by the development of means of transporta- 

 tion are even yet imperfectly understood, and consequently not 

 fully appreciated even by historians. Many of these changes in 



