12 BULLETIN 533, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



be grown to some advantage even on a very small scale and either 

 used in the household or sold for local consumption, an icolated in- 

 dividual farmer can hope for no advantage from the planting of a 

 small acreage in cotton. 



The beginnings of cotton culture in the South Atlantic States can 

 be traced back to the time when spinning and weaving were house- 

 hold industries and cotton was made into cloth and used on the 

 same plantation where it was raised; but with the modern organiza- 

 tion of the industry cotton has become a strictly commercial crop, 

 grown only to be sent to market. The effect is to limit the produc- 

 tion of cotton to districts where facilities for marketing exist or to 

 communities that can begin cotton culture on such a scale as to enable 

 these facilities to be provided. 



In order to send cotton to market it has to be ginned, to separate 

 the seed from the fiber, and packed into bales. For both of these 

 operations special machinery is required; not very expensive ma- 

 chinery, it is true, but too expensive for the individual farmer to 

 install for any ordinary farm acreage of cotton. Unless a commu- 

 nity appears likely to plant 1,000 acres or more of cotton the in- 

 stallation of ginning machinery can hardly be considered advisable, 

 either by the community itself or by an independent ginning com- 

 pany. It is not absolutely necessary that large acreages be planted 

 the first year, since the cotton from small experimental plantings in 

 a new community can usually be shipped to some established center 

 where gins are in operation or can be held over in case it is decided 

 to plant on a commercial scale during the next year. 



Still larger acreages must be in prospect if a community is to be 

 provided with its own oil mill, which is necessary for disposing of 

 the seed to the best advantage. Oil-mill equipments are more expen- 

 sive than gins, but they are not beyond the reach of large and well- 

 organized communities, like those that own and operate fruit-packing 

 houses and many similar undertakings in California. 



COMMUNITY CONTROL OF GINS AND OIL MILLS. 



Control of the gin and oil-mill equipment by the community is 

 very desirable, not only for the financial reason of enabling the 

 growers to secure a larger share of the profits of the industry but 

 also for more directly agricultural reasons. It is out of the question 

 to maintain pure stocks of seed without special precautions that are 

 very seldom observed at privately operated commercial gins. The 

 mixing of different varieties or stocks of seed at the gin is the most 

 frequent cause of deterioration of the varieties, the result being to 

 destroy the uniformity of the fiber and lessen the commercial value 

 of the cotton produced by the community. 



