284 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



3 7 ear, whenever the field was planted in cotton. They were 

 originally low, and rather small they were increased in height 

 and breadth, according to the different opinions of men. 



From the year 1798 to 1802, the St. Simon's cultivation had 

 assumed a regular form, and was in my opinion 'good ; twenty- 

 one rows to the 105 feet, the ridge occupying the entire space, 

 large, but full and flat upon the top. The cotton seed drilled, 

 and the plants thinned, from six to ten inches apart, dependant 

 upon the expected growth of the plant. Major Butler, and 

 Messrs. Couper and Hamilton, who cultivated extensively near 

 me, were in the habit of topping the cotton in August, to re- 

 tain, as they supposed, its fruit. I was in the habit of taking 

 off the top of the plant, when the cotton was from 15 to 18 

 inches high, to make it branch and give a better head. 



Twenty years ago, upon purchasing some river land opposite 

 to Savannah, I adopted permanent ridges, planting a row of 

 corn, and a row of cotton, alternately. These ridges had stood 

 nine years when my son sold the plantation, giving, as I think, 

 the best cotton and the best corn crops in Chatham county. 

 And this course I consider the nearest approach to Flemish 

 husbandry I have known in Georgia; because, although the 

 corn and the cotton changed alternately from ridge to ridge, 

 the entire field was kept in full culture, preventing the growth 

 of grass and noxious weeds. 



8th. Accounts were kept in pounds, shillings, and pence, in 

 those times. Cotton brought at first 14<Z. sterling, but rose 

 gradually, in about four or five years, to two shillings ; at which 

 it stood until the unfortunate dabbling with commerce com- 

 menced in the year 1806. The first non-importation act passed 

 in that year, and none more active in its adoption than our 

 southern men. There were but five men, south of the Poto- 

 mac, who voted against it : Randolph, J. M. Garnett, Thomson 

 of Virginia, Standard of North Carolina, and myself from 



