38 COTTOX CULTURE. 



son, for instance during the month of October, these open 

 bolls, with the handful of snowy fibre hanging loose and 

 fleecy, sometimes six or eight inches downward from the 

 stem, present a beautiful and interesting sight. 



It seems like very easy work to gather a material which 

 shows itself in such abundance as fairly to whiten the field, 

 but let the skeptic or the grumbler take a bag on his 

 shoulder, and start in between a couple of rows. He will 

 find, upon taking hold of the first boll, that the fibres are 

 quite firmly attached to the interior lining of the pod, and 

 if he makes a quick snatch, thinking to gather the entire 

 lock, he will only tear it in two, or leave considerable adher- 

 ing to the pod. And yet he may notice that an experienced 

 picker will gather the cotton, and lay his fingers into the 

 middle of the open pod with a certain expertness which 

 only practice gives ; the effect of which is to clear the 

 whole pod with one movement of the hand. Even long 

 practice does not enable every laborer to become a rapid 

 picker, no more than every printer is a fast compositor. 

 There is a knack in cotton picking as in type setting, which 

 cannot be acquired by all. Women generally make the 

 fastest pickers, and next to them will be found the small, 

 compact young man, weighing about a hundred and forty 

 pounds, and not more than five feet eight inches in height. 

 Good pickers are generally quiet, sometimes not speaking 

 a word from one end of the row to the other. They are 

 persons who habitually keep their minds directly on the 

 thing in hand, and who, by the constitution of their bodies, 

 enjoy the intensity of swift motions, and naturally love to 

 accomplish a good deal in what they are doing. When 

 the bag attains the weight of, say twenty-five pounds or 

 more, there should be a convenient arrangement for trans- 

 ferring its contents to the basket. It is here that the skill 

 and calculation of a planter are manifested. For instance, 

 if you set your baskets beside one of the plantation roads, 

 and start your hands in to go from there to the other side 



