244 ON THE CULTIVATION OP COTTON IN BRITISH GUIANA. 



crop. You might ride up to the manager's house and call long and loud, 

 without receiving an answer, or seeing a single soul. The groom was 

 picking cotton, so was the cook, while the butler, who, on these occasions 

 only, condescended to go into the field, picked in company with the house- 

 maid, and helped her to bring home a well-filled bag. A little before 

 sunset, the people came into the logies or store-houses, where each person's 

 cotton was weighed. The men were generally bad and clumsy pickers, 

 and brought only 30 or 40 lbs., but the more quick fingered women, 

 particularly those who could take two or three children into the field to help 

 them, came bending along under the weight of 100 lbs. or more of 

 cotton. 



I may here mention that cotton, as it comes from the tree, is calculated 

 to give one third its weight in merchantable cotton. That is, 100 lbs. of 

 cotton will yield 33J- lbs. of clean cotton, after all the seeds have 

 been separated from it. Close to the logies or store-houses, were the 

 droghies or drying-places, formed of tiles laid in the ground, on which 

 the cotton was exposed to the sun. This was done by children ; and it took 

 three or four days thoroughly to dry a batch of cotton, the point of perfec- 

 tion being when the seed was dry enough to crack crisply between the 

 teeth. The cotton might then be safely stowed away to wait the " gin 

 men," but it would heat and spoil, with the chances of spontaneous combus- 

 tion. 



Up to this point, the work of the estate might have been carried on 

 entirely by women and children. But now comes the hard work — viz., the 

 separating the seed from the cotton, or " ginning," as it is called. The 

 "gin-house" was a large shed open at the sides ; and, on entering it, the 

 visitor saw what he would probably imagine to be many knife-grinders 

 working away at their wheels, while they turned them with their feet — 

 for so was the foot-gin worked. Only in place of the grindstone there 

 were two rollers about eighteen inches long, and as thick as an office ruler 

 turning in opposite directions, one above the other, and almost touching, — 

 one being made of brass, and the other of a peculiarly tough wood. In 

 front of these rollers was a small feeding-board, at which the gin-man 

 stood, and from which he fed the rollers with cotton, all the time causing 

 them to turn at a quick, steady rate, by pressing with the foot on the 

 treddle of his gin. The cotton-wool passed through the rollers into a bag, 

 and the seed, which was too large to pass, went its way through a slit in 

 the feeding-board. A good gin-man finished about 50 lbs. of clean cotton 

 a day — that is, 150 lbs. of seed-cotton. But the cotton was not even yet 

 ready for shipping, for a few seeds might have been crushed by the rollers 

 in the process of ginning, and not oidy mingled little particles of their 

 black husks with the wool, but also stained it with the oil which they con- 

 tained. A few dry leaves also might have escaped the sharp eyes of the 

 children when drying the cotton, and these crushed by the rollers, sullied 

 the otherwise virgin purity of the wool. It was, therefore, handed over to 

 women, about 60 lbs. to each, who picked out every particle of impurity 



