1859. 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Q6X 
How Cotton is Grown and Prepared for 
Market —. .III. 
BALING. 
As cotton has to go a long distance to market, 
and much of it to make a sea voyage, it is a mat¬ 
ter of great importance, that it should be stowed 
into the smallest possible compass. A press, 
moved by mule or horse-power, is usually attached 
to the gin-house, which puts it into bales of the 
size usually seen in the cotton ports of the South. 
This is done for the convenience of the planter, 
in getting his crop to market. The bale is cov¬ 
ered with a coarse kind of sack-cloth, and made 
secure with seven bands of rope, about three- 
fourths of an inch in diameter. The bale, as it 
leaves the planter's hands, is about five feet in 
length, three and a half broad, and two or more 
in thickness, and weighs about four hundred 
pounds. The sacking and rope sell as a part of 
the cotton, and on these the planter makes a 
small profit. 
Recently, iron hoops have been introduced, and 
their great superiority has been demonstrated, 
but they are not yet very generally adopted. 
They are not only stronger than the rope, so as to 
admit of smaller bales for shipping, but they are 
a great safeguard against fire, an accident to 
which this crop is exceedingly liable. Every 
year large quantities are destroyed from this 
cause, both in the press, and at sea. It is a well 
ascertained fact, that a mass of cotton closely 
compressed, will only burn slowly upon the out¬ 
side. In case of fire, the ropes around the bales 
are soon burnt off, and the cotton expands, and 
admits the fire to the interior of the mass. But 
with iron hoops, it is kept so closely compressed, 
that it will not consume for days, in the midst of 
a bonfire. 
Notwithstanding these very important advan¬ 
tages, the iron hoops are very slowly adopted, 
and hundreds of thousands of dollars are frequent¬ 
ly sacrificed in a single fire to this old routine 
method of baling. The planter would lose a 
small profit on his ropes, and those who press and 
ship cotton in the cities, would probably have 
some prejudices or profits to lose. It would seem 
that if anything could be done to lessen the perils 
of fire at sea, it ought to be adopted at once. 
There is, perhaps, no cargo, except gunpowder, 
on fire, more unmanageable than that of cotton. 
transportation. 
The rail-ways in the cotton States are gradual¬ 
ly effecting a change in the mode of marketing. 
Formerly, it was a great occasion, to load up the 
wagons and start for the nearest steamboat land¬ 
ing, seventy-five or a hundred miles distant, in¬ 
volving an absence of several days, or a week. 
This trip was eagerly coveted by the negroes, 
who then had an opportunity to see something of 
the world outside of the plantation, and return 
with marvelous experiences, and adventures, to 
relate to their less favored brethren. This is still 
the mode of marketing in the regions where the 
railways have not penetrated, and it is a large tax 
upon the remote planter, to get liis crops to mar¬ 
ket. But the new railroads have brought a mar¬ 
ket to the doors of thousands of planters, and the 
crop is now only carted a few miles to the depot, 
instead of going a long journey to the steamboat 
landing, on mule or ox carts. 
SHIPPING PORTS. 
A large number of cities and villages along the 
navigable rivers derive their chief importance 
from the cotton trade. There are said to be over 
three hundred landing places, for the shipping of 
cotton, upon the rivers emptying into Mobile Bay. 
Upon the Mississippi, important cities have been 
built up mainly by this trade, as Natchez, Vicks¬ 
burg, and Memphis. Here may be seen, at al¬ 
most any time in the shipping season, cotton 
bales, literally by the acre. They are piled up not 
only near the landings, but along the streets far 
back in the city, waiting their turn for a trip down 
the river. The steamers all go with full freights, 
their guards piled with bales three and four tiers 
deep. 
The three great cotton ports of the South, 
where this crop is forwarded to the manufactur¬ 
er, are Charleston, Mobile, and New-Orleans ; the 
latter city having by far the largest portion of the 
trade, which is every year increasing as the new 
lands along the Arkansas, and the Red rivers, 
and their affluents, are opened for plantations. At 
New-Orleans, one gets the best idea of the vast 
extent and importance of this great crop of the 
Southern States. There is no spot in the coun¬ 
try where one can take in at a single glance so 
much agricultural wealth, as upon the levee. 
Nothing can exceed the activity and bustle of 
this great mart, in the winter months. Here are 
hundreds of steamboats discharging cotton bales, 
and hundreds of ships from all parts of Europe, 
and our own Northern States, waiting for their 
cargoes, or taking them in. There is a constant 
stream of drays, carrying the bales up into the 
city to the presses, and returning them to the 
levee, to be shipped on their long sea voyage. 
And with the best endeavors of shippers to keep 
the levee clear, it is often piled with rows of bales 
miles in length, broken only by narrow passages 
for carts. 
THE COTTON PRESSES 
are among the institutions of the city, often cov¬ 
ering whole squares with buildings for storing 
cotton, before and after it is pressed. This is gen¬ 
erally done at the expense of the shipper, and for 
the sake of making better stowage. In long 
voyages, it is a matter of great importance to 
economise space. The press reduces the size of 
the bale at least one-third, so that a ship can car¬ 
ry a third more freight, without materially increas¬ 
ing its expenses. The pressing is almost uni¬ 
versal, the exception being in favor of deck loads 
going to northern ports, or on other short 
voyages. 
The press is a powerful apparatus, worked by 
steam and a gang of hands to handle the cotton. 
The ropes are first cut, with the exception of the 
middle band—then the bale is passed on to the 
platform, the steam is turned on in a trice, and 
the counterpart of the platform comes down from 
above like the follower of a cheese hoop, squeezing 
the bale to about a foot in thickness. Three men 
tie the six bands, while the pressure is on, and 
two more tack up the ends of the sacking with 
their needles, about as quick as one can describe 
the process. A constant stream of bales passes 
through the press from morning till night. There 
are over a dozen of these establishments in the 
city, and some idea of the magnitude of the busi¬ 
ness may be gained, when we see a million and a 
half of bales passing through them every year. 
The cotton crop of last year is one of the larg¬ 
est upon record, notwithstanding the great num¬ 
ber of plantations in the bottom lands that were 
flooded too late to admit of planting. The new 
lands, in the States of Mississippi and Alabama, 
are not yet exhausted, and in Arkansas and 
Texas they are but just opened. "With the pres¬ 
ent skinning methods of husbandry, it will be 
many years before the crop will fall off for want 
of suitable lands. With a proper system of culti¬ 
vation, rotation of crops, and manuring, and es¬ 
pecially with a more intelligent class of laborers 
to carry out the system, our Southern States may 
maintain their pre-eminence in cotton growing for 
generations to come. This a few of the educated 
and public spirited planters are beginning to see. 
Already the leaven of a better system of husband¬ 
ry is working, and County and State Societies are 
forming, and Agricultural papers are more liber¬ 
ally patronized. The friends of improvement 
have many obstacles to contend with, in the iso¬ 
lated condition of the planters, and the sparse¬ 
ness of the population, but they have the right 
spirit, and there can be no doubt of their final 
triumph. We wish them the largest success. 
Tim Bunker’s Hay Crop. 
A NEW CASE OF THE BLACK ART. 
Mr. Editor. 
“ Eleven tun of hay on that mash ! Who 
would have thought it three years ago ! ” ex¬ 
claimed Seth Twigs, as he knocked the ashes 
out ol his second pipe, and proceeded to load 
again. 
“Did you say eleven tun, Squire Bunker 1 ” 
asked Deacon Little, as he leaned over his staff 
toward me, with his mouth open in astonish¬ 
ment, as if he thought somebody must have 
been lying. 
“It beats my musk-rat swamp all hollow, 
where I got two tun to the acre the first year 
after seeding down, and I thought that was 
enough to keep an extra thanksgiving on,” 
chimed in uncle Jotham Sparrowgrass. 
“ Eleven tun on four acres of barren salt 
mash, where grass tried to grow, and couldn’t 
three years ago, is a leetle miraculus, ain't it, 
Mr. Spooner 1” asked Jake Frink, looking over 
to the minister, with as much deference as if 
he was a professor. 
“The Bible says, we are to have a new heav¬ 
ens and a new earth, and I think Esq. Bunker 
is probably fulfilling the latter part of the prophe¬ 
cy,” replied the minister, with a quiet sort of 
smile, that left one in doubt whether be was in 
earnest or not. 
These remarks of my neighbors on my re¬ 
claimed salt marsh are a great contrast to the 
talk three years ago, when I first undertook that 
job. I have not said anything about this improve¬ 
ment yet, because I did not know exactly how it 
was coming out. You know the tide flows a long 
way up our great river, and all along the banks, 
at the mouths of creeks emptying into it, and 
along the Sound, we have marshes bearing a 
great abundance of salt hay—a poor article for 
fodder, but very good for litter, mulching, and 
manure. I had a few acres lying just below the 
lot I bought of Jake Frink, where I cured the 
horse pond. There was not much to be done to 
it, but to put in a tide gate at the culvert, and to 
do some ditching, to shut off the sea-water. I 
thought if I could do this, I could bring it into 
good meadow with very little expense. 
I talked the matter over with some of my 
neighbors, and they all said, it was of no use. 
But I hold, that man was born in the image of his 
Maker, and has a natural passion for creating new 
tilings. This shows itself in all children, as soon 
as they get out of the cradle. They begin to 
make hills in the dirt, to dig out small pond holes 
and fill them with water, to build bouses and 
mud forts, to whittle as soon as they can hold a 
jack-knife, and to exercise the creative art in 
general. I thought it was a very natural and 
human thing for me, to undertake to create a 
piece of meadow. It was all the more natural 
for me, because I wanted a few more tuns of hay 
to winter my cattle on, as { could pasture more 
