THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
83 
iiaps be -I exiiibit it. I have cuiiunenced leed- 
ing and shall continue to leed— 
id head of horned catile with 80 lbs. of cut 
straw each per day, 4 cents for each 20 lbs. 50 
cent.s,. Also to each, ri ins. ol' roots grated, mix- 
ed with, straw, 3 cents, 42 cents. And no w alio w 
150 davs for the season of feeding at 98 cents, 
is $147. The same stock would require 20 lbs. 
of hay each per day for 150 days 5 they would 
consume 42,000 lbs., equal to 21 tonsj at the 
moderate pi ice of $10 per ton, $210. Balance 
in lavor of root feed $03, and 1 am sure the 
stock will appear far better at theopeniag of the 
spring. 
You will, perceive, that the respective value 
of vegetables for food is six cents a bushel. 
While hay is at ten and Araw at four. It may 
be said there is som.e cost in preparing! od, but 
this is more than compensated if properly done, 
by^the extra quantities ol manure made.'’ 
Thus it appears that 20}bs-. of straw, and 8 
lbs. ol roots, mixed, afford more nutriment, and 
of course are more Valuable than 20 lbs. ofgood 
feay, while the actual cost is much less. 
li tons roots is a moderate crop per acre, 
while the average of hay will fall considerably 
below two tons per acre. The advantage in fa- 
vor of the tuinep is thus perfectly apparent, and 
ihe farmer who persists in mowing his twenty 
or forty acres, which would furnish roots suffi- 
cient, if mixed with the straw which might be 
grown on the remainder, to keep his animals far 
better than the hay, and leave the grain crop 
nearly a clear profit, is clearly acting against 
his true interests. 
Again we say to our farmers, you did well 
last year by so extensively entering rpun the 
culture ol roots 5 you will do better this year by 
gieatly extending their culnvation.” 
Communicated for the Southern Agriculturist. 
ON THE COTTON GIN, AND THE INTRODUCTION 
OF COTTON. 
Answers to queries of Hon. W. B. Seabrook 
of Edisto, 8. C., by Thos. Spalding, Esq. of 
Sapelo, Geo. 
Sapelo Island^ Jan. 20l.h, 1844. 
Dear Sir: Your letter ol the 10th inst. was 
received two days ago, and I was gratified at 
the communication, as I have long wished tp 
be personally acqu.iinted with .some of the gen- 
tlemen ol your immediate district; your pur- 
suits, your habits, and your op nions, appear- 
ing to be in accordance with my own; and no- 
thing but the continued pressure of a paintui 
disease, (pi nowteri yegrs standing, has prevent- 
ed me carrving out my design, by visiting you. 
I vvi 11 now proceed to answer your queries, 
in the order in which they are placed; only beg- 
ing you to remember, if you notice any indis- 
tinctness in my answers, that I have only a lew 
days since recovered from a very bcvere illness 
which prostrated both 'lody and mind, 
1st. Eve’s Gin was invented by Jo-seph Eve, 
who lately died at Augusta, somewhere about 
Jhe year 1790, in the Bahama Islands, where 
Mr. Eve then resided, 
Mr. Eve was the son of a Loyalist from Penn- 
sylvania. who had been the frienu of Franklin; 
and Jos. Eve was himself qualified to have 
been the associate and companion ol Franljlin, 
or any other; the most enlightened man I h^ve 
ever known. His Gin consists of two pair of 
rollers, more than three feet long, placed the one 
set over the other, upon a solid frame that stands 
upon the floor, inclined at an angle of about 
thirty degrees— so that the feeder may the more 
easily throw the cotton in the seed by the hand- 
ful upon a wire grating that projects two inches 
in advance of the rollers, just below them ; be 
tween these projecting wires, the leedingrboards, 
with strong iron, or in preference, brass teeth 
pass, lifting the cotton from the wire grqting, 
and offering it to the revolving rollers. The 
feeders should make one revolution to every 
lour revolutions of the rollers. The rollers are 
carried forwaid by wheels supported over the 
Gin, and upon the axle, orshaftol these rollers; 
at the centre, there is a crank, similar to a saw- 
pull crapk, the diameter of whpse revolyerpenf, 
IS as one to tour ol the diameter of the w heels, 
carrying by bands the rollers. 
It is me crimping produced by the teeth and 
the wire grating, whic 1 has served s a cause 
for carping by the cotton- buyers, and which has 
gradually led to thedisu.se ut these Gins, the on- 
ly Gin etficient lor the cleaning ol long cotton, 
which has ever been used in this or any other 
country. With Mr. Eve’s Gin, as originally 
sent to this country Ifoin the Bahamas, the rol- 
lers were I of an inch in diameter, made of stop- 
per wood, a very hard and tough wood, and they 
were graduated to make 480 to 500 revolutions 
per minute, depending ol course, upon the gait 
of the horses 01 mules, within these limits. 
Boon after Mr. Eve first sent his gins to Geor- 
gia, some of his own workmen lollowed them, 
and began to make them on their own account. 
I’o show as much change as possible in the 
Gins, beside the other alterations, they increas- 
ed the size ol the rollers, they increased the sizes 
of the roller to I ol an inch, and increased its 
velocity to six hundred times in the minute. 
The.se iwochan^es, while itgreatly increased the 
quantity ginned, very much injured the appear- 
ance ol the ginned cotton. Mr. Eve had ex- 
pected and guaranteed to the purchasers ol his 
gins w'hen well attended, in fine weather, from 
2b0 to 300 lbs. of cotton in the day, 1 have 
known these altered gins, do sometirnessix bun- 
dled, but the injury was greater than the increas- 
ed quantity warranted, add to which the quick- 
er movement 01 the leeder made the more im- 
pression upon the coiton passing from the feed- 
er to the roller. 
2d. The first bale of Sea-Island cotton that 
was ever produced in Georgia, was grown by 
Alexander Bisset, Esq. of St. Simon.s’s Island, 
and I tbir.k in the year 1778.. In the winter ol 
I785and ’86, I know of three parcels ol cotton 
seed being sent Horn the Bahamas,' by gentle- 
men of rank there, to theii Inends in Georgia ; 
Col. Kelsail sent to my father a small box of 
cotton seed ; the surveyor-general of the Baha- 
mas, Col. Tatnali, sent to his son, alterwards 
Governor Tatnali ol Georgia, a parcel of cotton 
seed; Alexander Bissett’s father, whowascom- 
missaiy-general to the Southern Briii.sh Army, 
sent a box of cotton seed to his son, in the year 
1786; this cotton gave no fruit, but the winter 
being moderate and the land new and warm, 
both my lather and Mr. Bis.sett had seed from 
the ratoon, and the plant became acclimatized. 
In 1788, Mr Bissett and my father extended the 
growth, but upon my mernt>r-y it rests, that Mr. 
Bissett was ihe first that found the means of 
separating the seed I'rom the c tton, by the 
simple process of a bench upon which rose 
a Irame supporting two short rollers, revolving 
in opposite directions, and each turned by a 
black buv or girl, and giving as the result ol the 
day’s work five lbs, ol clean cotton. W hat dis- 
position Mr Bissett mad.e of his cotton 1 know 
not, but as he was a sensible man, and his fa- 
ther had returned to England, I think it more 
than probable that he shitiped it there. 
3d. V\ hen cotton w'as first grow n it was plant- 
ed upon the flat I tnd at fi /e apart, it wms 
quite too thin, and although the j Japt grew gen- 
erally well, the product rarely reached one hun- 
dred lbs. per acre, and at four acres to the hand, 
gave about four hundred 10 the labor. 
My fitherdied in he year 1794, leaving me 
some property at St. iSimons’s Island; a gentle- 
man who had been his friend, came k r his 
health, to spend the w'inti r of that year in Geor- 
gia, he gave his advice freely to all he saw, that 
w’ere growing cotton; I was young, he had been 
the friend of my lather, I listened to his advice, 
leftSor 10 plant* whereonehad’gro'<n; and uade 
off a small field of sixty aoies, 350 lbs. to the 
acre. The revolution wms accomplished and 
the crop greally inpreaeed, 
4th. No manure was used for many years in 
the culture of cotton, persons depending upon 
the in-field, and the out, or the alternatecultiva- 
tion of the field, which was soon found neces- 
sary. The firsf suggestion of manure upon a 
large scale to cotton, came from Col. Shubrick, 
of S. Carolioq, who recommcpdei^ in some es- 
says in the papers, the application of the drift- 
ed reck, that is throwm up by the tides. After 
the hurricane of 1804, 1 be.stow ed a great deal of 
labor in spreading this reck between my cotton 
rows over several hundred acres ; whether the 
sea had left too much salt, or w'hether there was 
too much in the material itself, 1 know not, but 
I neither then, nor afterwards, experienced much 
benefit Irom the application. 
5th. The plow w'as but little used for any 
purpose at St. Simon’s ; it takes many years be- 
fore the Palmetto, and the collateral roots of the 
Live Oak, make hammock land free to the 
plow. Major Butler did use the plow with 
mules lor both purposes. 
6th. The cotton was generally worked four 
times; we soon found that our working should 
cease, as soon as the rains became heavy, say 
at the middle or end of July. 
7th. The ridges were renewed every year, or 
every other year, whenever the field was planted 
in cotton ; they were originally low, and rather 
small; they were increased in height and breath, 
according to the different opinions of men. 
From the year 1798 to 1802, the St. Simon’s 
cultivation had assumed a regular form, and 
was in ray opinion, good; twenty-one rows to 
the 105 leet, the ridge occupying the entire 
space, large but full and flat upon the top. The 
cotton seed drilled, and the plants thinned, from 
SIX to ten inehes apart, dependant upon the ex- 
pected growth ol the plant. Major Butler, aud 
Messrs. Couper & Hamilton who cultivated ex- 
tensively near me, were in the habit of topping 
the cotton in August, to retain, as they suppos- 
ed its Iruit. I was in the habit of taking off 
the top ol the plant, when the cotton was Irom 
15 to 18 inches high, to make it branch and give 
a better head. 
Twenty years ago, upon purchasing some 
river land, opposite to Savannah, I Adopted 
permanent ridges, planting a row of corn, and a 
row of cotton alternately ; these ridges had 
stood nine years, when my son sold the planta- 
tion, giving, as I think, the best cotton, and the 
best corn crops in Chatham county. And this 
course, 1 consider the neaiest approach to 
Flemish husbandry, I have known in Georgia ; 
because, although the corn and the cotton, 
changed alternately from ridge to ride, the entire 
field was kept in lull culture, preventing the 
growth of grass and noxious weeds, 
8 h. Accounts were kept in pounds, shillings, 
and pence, in those times, cotton brought at first 
14A sterling, but rose gradually in about four 
or five years, to two shillings, at which it stood, 
until the unfortunate dabbling w'ith commerce 
commenced in the year 1806. The first non- 
importation act, passed in that year, and none 
more active in its adoption, than our southern 
men. There were but five men, south of the 
Potomac, who voted agaipst it, Randolph, J. M, 
Garnett, Thomson of Virginia, Standard of 
Noith Carolina, and myself from Georgia. — 
From that day to this, the agriculture and com- 
meice of the country has been at the mercy of 
speculators, 
9th. Care was taken lor many years, as much 
as possible to separate the seed, carrying any fur 
from the black seed, intended for planting. 
10th. The St. Simon’s cotton stood first, and 
Maj. Butler’s and my own first among them. 
From the character of the tradesmen attending 
his gins, or the greater strictness of his mana- 
ger, his Gotten soon took a preference, which it 
preserved for some years. The staple of the St. 
Simon’s cotton, was thought better than any 
ther ; the putting up of Maj. Butler’s cotton 
placed it at the hands of others. 
Ifth. The bags were packed as now with the 
pestle. I never knew the screw used lor long 
staple cotton but at Mr. Hamilton’s plantation, 
and it was soon given up. 
12th. The green seed cotton, was for some 
years packed with the pestle, in fact I remember 
to have heard objections made to the screw, and 
square bales, at their first introduction. 
I3th. Negroes were worked in task-work, in 
Carolina and Georgia upon the sea-coast, from 
my earliest recoUpetion. The task in listing, 
