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hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds of cotton in the 

 day. I have known these altered" gins do sometimes six hun- 

 dred, but the injury was greater than the increased quantity 

 warranted, add to which the quicker movement of the feeder 

 made the more impression upon the cotton passing from the 

 feeder to the roller. 



2d. The first bale of Sea Island cotton that was ever pro- 

 duced in Georgia, was grown by Alexander Bisset, Esq., of 

 St. Simon's Island, and I think in the year 1778. In the 

 winter of 1785 and '86, I know of three parcels of cotton 

 seed being sent from the Bahamas, by gentlemen of rank 

 there, to their friends in Georgia ; Col. Kelsall sent to my 

 father a small box of cotton seed ; the surveyor-general of the 

 Bahamas, Col. Tatnall, sent to his son, afterwards Governor 

 Tatnall of Georgia, a parcel of cotton seed ; Alexander Bis- 

 sett's father, who was commissary-general to the Southern 

 British. Army, sent a box of cotton seed to his son, in the year 

 1786 ; this cotton gave no fruit, but the winter being moderate 

 and the land new and warm, both my father and Mr. Bissett 

 had seed from the ratoon, and the plant became acclimatized. 

 In 1788, Mr. Bissett and my father extended the growth, but 

 upon my memory it rests, that Mr. Bissett was the first that 

 found the means of separating the seed from the cotton, by 

 the simple process of a bench upon which rose a frame sup- 

 porting two short rollers, revolving in opposite directions, and 

 each turned by a black boy or girl, and giving as the result 

 of the day's work five Ibs. of clean cotton. What dispo- 

 sition Mr. Bissett made of his cotton I know not, but as he 

 was a sensible man, and his father had returned to England, I 

 think it more than probable that he shipped it there. 



3d. When cotton was first grown, it was planted on the flat 



land at five apart ; it was quite too thin, and although the 



plant grew generally well, the product rarely reached one 



