128 COTTON CULTURE. 



three dollars. During that period, the highest average 

 price paid was thirty-seven and a half cents per pound ; 

 the lowest, fourteen cents. 



The Sea Island cotton is the product of a plant that 

 seems to have been first carried to the Bahama Islands 

 from the Island of Anguilla, whither it is "believed to have 

 been transported from Persia, and was introduced and 

 cultivated upon the islands along the coast of Georgia, 

 immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War. 

 The staple or filament of Sea Island cotton is exceedingly 

 long, silken, and delicate. To pay as well as the short 

 staple, or Upland cotton, the Sea Island must sell for 

 twice as much per pound. Since the year 1850, the price 

 has greatly advanced, so that Sea Island has, much of the 

 time, commanded three and four times as much per pound 

 as the ordinary staple. 



About ten years ago, samples of Sea Island cotton, 

 grown on Edisto Island, together with a number of speci- 

 mens of the soil, were taken to Baltimore, and carefully 

 examined and analyzed by the State chemist. The 

 analysis of the seed and wool- gave results very similar to 

 the analysis of Upland cotton, given in the first part of 

 Chapter Third. 



It may be well, however, to subjoin a few of the results 

 obtained by the Baltimore analysis. Taking two hundred 

 pounds as the average growth of Sea Island cotton upon 

 an acre, and adding the six hundred pounds removed in 

 seed, it was found that, reducing these eight hundred 

 pounds to ashes, and ascertaining the composition of the 

 ash, an ordinary crop removes each year from an acre a 

 little more than twenty-six and a half pounds of chemical 

 salts, of which a little more than nine pounds, or about 

 one-third, is potash, nearly nine pounds is phosphoric acid, 

 of sulphuric acid a little more than a pound, three and a 

 half of magnesia, and of lime nearly two pounds. The 

 principal difference between this and Upland cotton is in 



