246 
CULTURE OF SEA-ISLAND COTTON. 
pending much upon the discretion that is used in 
the quantity applied, which had better be too little' 
I think, than too much, (c) 
Amount of Crop per Acre and Picking. —It 
has been stated already, that 500 lbs. to the acre is 
about the medium crop, which at 20 cents per lb., 
(more than the actual price for the last three 
years,) is to the planter $100 for gross-crop; and 
from this hundred dollars is to be subtracted bag¬ 
ging, freight, expenses of sale, clothing for his 
people, medical attention, and too often provisions. 
Is this man to be envied ? 
In picking the Sea-Island cotton from the field, 
the same disproportion exists with his interior 
brethren, as in the other operations on the crop. 
From the exposure to sea-wind, and the necessity 
of guarding against every possible injury to the 
staple, the fields have to be picked over every two 
weeks, commencing in August, and ending in De¬ 
cember; so that few planters receive from their 
people more than 25 lbs. of cotton per day during 
the picking season. 
Preparation for the Market. —The Sea-Island 
cotton is now almost exclusively separated from 
its seed by the foot-gin, two wooden rollers placed 
the one over the other in a frame. The rollers are 
one inch in diameter, about a foot long, and are 
inserted in an iron journal supported by the frame; 
upon this journal a fly-wheel 30 inches in diameter 
is placed, the journal after passing through the 
fiy-wheel has a crank to which the treadle work¬ 
ed by the foot is attached ; the fly-wheel is to give 
a circular motion by the tread of the foot. This 
gin generally separates 25 lbs. of cotton per day 
to one hand. The whole labor of preparing a bag 
of 300 lbs. of cotton, in sorting the cotton for the 
gin, in ginning, and in moting after the gin, in 
again examining it, and in packing, my friend Mr. 
Seabrook of South Carolina, puts down at 54 days’ 
work. I have estimated it at 60. Thus a bale 
of cotton worth $60, has cost after the cotton has 
been gathered into the house, 60 days’ labor. 
Locality of Sea-Island Cotton , Original Growth 
of the Lands , and Aborigines. —The Sea-Island 
cotton of the best quality is grown upon islands 
bounded by the sea on one side, and to the west by 
salt-rivers and salt-marsh. These islands extend 
from Charleston in South Carolina, to the river 
St. John’s in Florida, including the whole coast of 
Georgia. This space may be considered 250 miles, 
between which points there is a safe navigation 
for open boats, and for dragging vessels of 100 tons 
capacity. These islands were originally almost 
exclusively covered with live oak, and from them 
the navy of the United States has been entirely 
built. These live-oak groves once swarmed with 
Indian tribes who communed with Sir Walter 
Raleigh and General Oglethorpe with confidence 
and friendship. Everywhere you find barrens 
scattered through the cotton-fields, constructed ex¬ 
clusively of oyster-shells. Indian bones and In¬ 
dian pottery, and other remains, tell distinctly 
here, in ages past, that the red man lived and died. 
Healthiness of Climate. —Yolney, in his Amer¬ 
ican tour, says that “ the climate of this coast is 
the best in the United States, from Rhode Island 
south,” and this my own experience confirms ; car¬ 
rying more men into old age, than any other I 
know of; here too has been little change of in¬ 
habitants for one hundred years past—the son 
clinging to the home of his childhood, and to the 
grave of his father, (d) 
Thomas Spalding. 
Sapelo Island, Ga. 
{a) We beg leave to ask for information ; is not 
this diminishing in the yield per acre, owing to the 
land being exhausted in a measure by severe crop¬ 
ping, of the proper food essential to grow the cot¬ 
ton ? And were this material necessary for its 
growth, again supplied in the shape of manures, 
and a rotation of other crops, might we not expect, 
then, the same weight of cotton per acre as was 
obtained from the virgin soil ? It was by continual 
cropping that the western wheat-fields in this 
state (considered at first inexhaustible) at length 
so rapidly deteriorated in their yield; and it is by 
the use of manures, such as plowing in green clo¬ 
ver, adding lime, plaster, charcoal, ashes, &c., that 
these fields are now yielding larger crops, occa¬ 
sionally, than even in their pristine state. We 
doubt whether the alternate year of rest spoken of 
in the next paragraph by our correspondent, is 
sufficient to restore all the elements necessary for 
the growth of the cotton-plant; at least we have 
not found it so here in wheat, corn, and some other 
products; but having no experience ourselves in 
the culture of cotton, we speak hesitatingly, and 
can only reason from general principles. 
(b) Our correspondent is unquestionably correct 
here in regard to the rust or blight; for we know 
in growing wheat, that it is far more likely to be 
thus attacked sowed directly after plowing in green 
crops, or fresh manures like those from the stable, 
abounding largely with organic matter. Lime, 
ashes, charcoal, sea-mud, marl, or fresh muck, 
(swamp-earth,) made into a compost with lime or 
ashes, as spoken of here in a subsequent paragraph 
by our correspondent, and used as a top-dressing, 
would be much less likely to be followed by rust, 
than the green crops plowed in as detailed above. 
We believe that manures, and above all, a rota¬ 
tion of crops, is as necessary for the south as the 
north, and we should feel greatly indebted bv a 
series of articles on this subject from any of its in¬ 
telligent planters. 
(c) This has been proved by Gov. Hammond’s 
experiments on marling, where he found a moder¬ 
ate quantity beneficial, and a large quantity hurt¬ 
ful—at least for the first two or three years. See 
our July number, page 221, second column. In 
New Jersey, excessive marling, especially in Mon¬ 
mouth county, so far from being prejudicial, has 
proved as we are informed, to be their best sys¬ 
tem—300 to 400 loads are put on to an acre in the 
same season. But it must be remembered that 
marl greatly differs in its composition ; this spoken 
of in New Jersey, is supposed to be the upheavings 
of the ocean, and is much like sea-mud, abounding 
in rich organic matter and marine-shells, which 
immediately crumble on being exposed to the air, 
and become lime. 
(d) We are glad to hear this. Excessive em¬ 
igration is the curse of our country, and we doubt 
whether one fourth of those wandering forth into 
