COTTON-GROWING 155 



of native labour may be raised to a prohibitive figure, 

 from which it will not recover for years. Sometimes the 

 scientist may be able to take the matter in hand, and by 

 improving the value of the raw material, or by reducing 

 the cost of production, compensate for these disadvan- 

 tages; but this statement has been made so often, 

 and so seldom realized, that it might be better not to 

 repeat it. 



Essentially, then, cotton is a cheap-labour crop, and a 



hand-lahour crop as well (Figs. 5 and 6), and will remain 



so until the dream of a mechanical means 



M picke n r S Cal f P ickin S nasbeenrealized - In this respect 

 the author is inclined to think that the aim 

 of inventors has ranged too far ; a long experience of the 

 routine repetition of operations, such as those on which 

 the diagrams in this volume are based, has led him to 

 value small refinements in method. The position in 

 which a pencil is laid down by the side of the balance- 

 case may make a difference of 10 per cent, in the number 

 of weighings effected in an hour. Similarly, if a strip of 

 bent tin or a curly piece of wire would enable the pickers 

 to gather a few more bolls in the same time and with the 

 same effort, it might make the difference between the 

 success and failure of a new cotton-growing area. Even 

 such trifles as dropping the load of picked bolls at the 

 end of the row, instead of carrying it along other rows, 

 make a difference in the amount picked, and some simple 

 experiments of this kind might be quite usefully con- 

 ducted, in order to ascertain how time might be econo- 

 mized, without extra labour from the operatives. 



