54 
COTTON 
or cool weather, wet or dry. For the cotton seed 
must be ready to "come up" as soon as all danger 
of frost is passed; and now the rows, ridged and 
waiting, are opened, and fertilizer and seed dis- 
tributed. Then the long green line of two-leaved 
plants, bursting the hard seed-covering they have 
pushed above ground — and the grass that will not 
let them be and that we have always with us. Chop- 
ping then — white and black, old and young, every- 
body strong enough to handle a hoe. And the 
plants flourish under the summer sun; now "hoe- 
hands" report that some plants have "seven leaves," 
then that limbs have come, and squares — and finally 
the anxiety as to which farmer in the neighborhood 
shall report the first bloom, or which one in the 
county shall send the first one to the editor of the 
county paper. Weeks, then, of budding and bloom- 
ing and growing, the thrifty branches bedecked with 
white blooms that opened this morning and red 
blooms of yesterday, and becoming heavy now 
with green and growing bolls. Then on the lowest 
stalks the bolls begin to open — and who now will gin 
the first bale? The women in the towns begin to 
tremble for their negro cooks, and employers of 
colored men also begin to scent danger. For the 
coronation of King Cotton is at hand; and all the 
sons and daughters of Ham must dance attendance.. 
Cotton-picking has an irresistible attraction for all 
negroes, especially when the picking is done in 
groups, and though they stay in town even through 
the watermelon season, cotton picking is likely to 
lure them back to farms. 
"The real depth of feeling," as some one has said,, 
"the sheer abandon and the proper stage setting 
does not come until September has touched the cot- 
ton fields, and the great hearts of the maturing bolls 
