14 BULLETIN 146^ U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 
UPLAND CROWDIXG OUT SEA ISLAND COTTON. 
In most of the Georgia and in much of the Florida Sea Island area 
either kind grows well, but Upland is encroaching on Sea Island in 
every county in which both are being grown. The reasons usually 
given for this preference for Upland are that its yield is greater, that 
it is less easily ruined by storms, that it is much easier to pick and 
to gin, that there is always a ready market for it, that it is less 
exhaustive to land, and that upon the whole it is just about as profit- 
able as Sea Island. 
In both Georgia and Florida the Sea Island crop is made with the 
strictest economy in human labor, and, indeed, in some parts of Florida 
economy in labor is carried to the pomt of neglect. It seems that 
if crops there were worked better and fertilized more intelhgently 
in some locahties the yield would be so much higher that the costs of 
production per pound would be reduced. But in both States hand- 
work such as found in South Carolina is unknown. Cotton is thinned 
with a hoe, or ^'chopped to a stand," and generally hoed once there- 
after, but all the rest of the cultivation is with plows or cultivators, 
resulting in a decided cheapening of the cost of production. 
INTERIOR MARKETING. 
The system of business for the interior market is different from 
that prevailmg at Charleston, or at Savannah, which resembles 
Charleston in organization. The interior markets are of compara- 
tively recent growth and have few rules or traditions which must be 
comphed with. In most of these markets some enterprising firm 
operates a modem gia. The firm buys the cotton in the seed wher- 
ever it is offered for sale and sliips it to its ginhouse to be ginned 
and baled. It is then offered direct to spinners by the ginning 
company. In case the ginner receives orders for cotton he does 
not have, he either buys it from some farmer who owns a gin or on 
the Savannah market. 
GOOD WORK OF GINNING COMPANIES. 
The ginning companies have been of great assistance to farmers 
in getting new and improved seed for planting purposes. It has 
already been explained how difficult it has been to get new seed from 
the Carohna islands during the past few years, but the ginners of 
Georgia and Florida have secured the best seed obtainable under the 
circumstances and have distributed it among their farmer patrons. 
They have shown the proper appreciation of their situation and have 
endeavored to remedy it. It seems probable that they will soon 
find access to an ample supply of Carolina planting seed that will 
produce at least a If -inch staple of uniform length and of good 
strength. 
