COTTON 
197 
only a little less than now, one can readily see what 
a factor in cotton production is this one item of 
gathering the crop. For wheat we may reckon 
one dollar as an average price. What would you 
think of 20 cents per bushel for labor in the har- 
vest field? With cotton, too, it costs practically 
the same for picking whether the price is six, eight 
or ten cents per pound. Surely it is selling for 
little enough now. We read of the enormous value 
of the 1905 cotton crop, but it is well to remember 
that it cost the cotton farmer about seventy-five 
million dollars to gather it after the crop was grown. 
WEIGHING 
As the pickers fill their sacks they return to some 
convenient place where the sacks are emptied, and 
then back again they go to picking again, and thus 
they work for the greater part of the day. The 
cotton is emptied into baskets or put into piles on 
blankets or cloths of some sort. At night, or when 
the field is picked over, the owner weighs the picked 
cotton and either pays or credits each picker for 
the quantity gathered. Many of these piles are 
made; as many as there are individual families or 
pickers. It is the only way to determine the 
amount earned, which is then easily calculated. 
This cotton is called seed cotton, and after weigh- 
ing, it is hauled to the barn, "cotton house," or 
other place of storage. 
THE COTTON PICKER 
As has already been indicated, the draft on cot- 
ton profits is greatest for picking. We gather 
