upon the cotton plantation. Planters appreciate generally the
value of broad-leaved and narrow-leaved plants and root crops,
but there is an absence of exact knowledge, with the result that
their practices are very varied. It is believed that the rotation
must differ with every variety of soil, with the result that each
planter has his own method, and little can be said in general. A
more careful study of the physical as well as the chemical
properties of a soil must precede intelligent experimentation in
rotation. This knowledge is still lacking with regard to most of
the cotton soils. The only uniform practice is to let the fields
“rest” when they have become exhausted. Nature then restores
them very rapidly. The exhaustion of the soil under cotton
culture is chiefly due to the loss of humus, and nature soon puts
this back in the excellent climate of the cotton-growing belt.
Fields considered utterly used up, and allowed to “rest” for
years, when cultivated again have produced better crops than
those which had been under a more or less thoughtful rotation.
In spite of the clean culture, good crops of cotton have been grown
on some soils in the south for more than forty successive years.
The fibre takes almost nothing from the land, and where the
seeds are restored to the soil in some form, even without other
fertilizers, the exhaustion of the soil is very slow. If the burning-up
of humus and the leaching of the soil could be prevented, there
is no reason why a cotton soil should not produce good crops
continuously for an indefinite time. Bedding up land previous
to planting is almost universal. The bed forms a warm seed-bed
in the cool weather of early spring, and holds the manure which is
drilled in usually to better advantage. The plants are generally
left 2 or 3 in. above the middle of the row, which in four-foot rows
gives a slope of 1 in. to the foot, causing the plough to lean from
the plants in cultivating, and thus to cut fewer roots. The plants
are usually cut out with a hoe from 8 to 14 in. apart. It seems to
make little difference exactly what distance they are, so long as
they are not wider apart on average land than 1 ft. On rich
bottom-land they should be more distant. The seed is dropped
from a planter, five or six seeds in a single line, at regular intervals
10 to 12 in. apart. A narrow deep furrow is usually run immediately
in advance of the planter, to break up the soil under the
seed. The only time the hoe is used is to thin out the cotton in
the row; all the rest of the cultivation is by various forms of
ploughs and so-called cultivators. The question of deep and
shallow culture has been much discussed among planters without
any conclusion applicable to all soils being reached. All grass
and weeds must be kept down, and the crust must be broken
after every rain, but these seem to be the only principles upon
which all agree. The most effective tool against the weeds is a
broad sharp “sweep,” as it is called, which takes everything it
meets, while going shallower than most ploughs. Harrows and
cultivators are used where there are few weeds, and the mulching
process is the one desired.
The date of cotton-planting varies from March 1 to June 1, according to situation. Planting begins early in March in Southern Texas, and the first blooms will appear there about May 15. Planting may be done as late as April 15 in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and continue as late as the end of May. The first blooms will appear in this region about July 15. Picking may begin on July 10 in Southern Texas, and continue late into the winter, or until the rare frost kills the plants. It may not begin until September 10 in Piedmont, North Carolina. It is a peculiarity of the cotton-plant to lose a great many of its blooms and bolls. When the weather is not favourable at the fruiting stage, the otherwise hardy cotton plant displays its great weakness in this way. It sheds its “forms” (as the buds are called), blooms, and even half-grown bolls in great numbers. It has frequently been noted that even well-fertilized plants upon good soil will mature only 15 or 20% of the bolls produced. No means are known so far for preventing this great waste. Experts are at an entire loss to form a correct idea of the cause, or to apply any effective remedy.
Cotton-picking is at once the most difficult and most expensive operation in cotton production. It is paid for at the rate of from 45 to 50 cents per cwt. of seed cotton. The work is light, and is effectually performed by women and even children, as well as men; but it is tedious and requires care. The picking season will average 100 days. It is difficult to get the hands to work until the cotton is fully opened, and it is hard to induce them to pick over 100 ℔ a day, though some expert hands are found in every cotton plantation who can pick twice as much. The loss resulting from careless work is very serious. The cotton falls out easily or is dropped. The careless gathering of dead leaves and twigs, and the soiling of the cotton by earth or by the natural colouring matter from the bolls, injure the quality. It has been commonly thought that the production of cotton in the south is limited by the amount that can be picked, but this limit is evidently very remote. The negro population of the towns and villages of the cotton country is usually available for a considerable share in cotton-picking. There is in the cotton states a rural population of over 7,000,000, more or less occupied in cotton-growing, and capable, at the low average of 100 ℔ a day, of picking daily nearly 500,000 bales. It is evident, therefore, that if this number could work through the whole season of 100 days, they could pick three or four times as much cotton as the largest crop ever made. Great efforts have been made to devise cotton-picking machines, but, as yet, complete success has not been attained. Lowne’s machine is useful in specially wide-planted fields and when the ground is sufficiently hard.
Cotton Ginning.—The crop having been picked, it has to be prepared for purpose of manufacture. This comprises separating the fibre or lint from the seeds, the operation being known as “ginning.” When this has been accomplished the weight of the crop is reduced to about one-third, each 100 ℔ of seed cotton as picked yielding after ginning some 33 ℔ of lint and 66 ℔ of cotton seed. The actual amounts differ with different varieties, conditions of cultivation, methods of ginning, &c.; a recent estimate in the United States gives 35% of lint for Upland cotton and 25% for Sea Island cotton as more accurate.
The separation of lint from seed is accomplished in various ways. The most primitive is hand-picking, the fibre being laboriously pulled from off each seed, as still practised in parts of Africa. In modern commercial cotton production ginning machines are always used. Very simple machines are used in some parts of Africa. The simplest cotton gin in extensive use is the “churka,” used from early times, and still largely employed in India and China. It consists essentially of two rollers either both of wood, or one of wood and one of iron, geared to revolve in contact in opposite directions; the seed cotton is fed to the rollers, the lint is drawn through, and the seed being unable to pass between the rollers is rejected. With this primitive machine, worked by hand, about 5 ℔ of lint is the daily output. In the Macarthy roller gin, the lint, drawn by a roller covered with leather (preferably walrus hide), is drawn between a metal plate called the “doctor” (fixed tangentially to the roller and very close to it) and a blade called the “beater” or knife, which rapidly moves up and down immediately behind, and parallel to, the fixed plate. The lint is held by the roughness of the roller, and the blade of the knife or beater readily detaches the seed from the lint; the seed falls through a grid, while the lint passes over the roller to the other side of the machine. A hand Macarthy roller gin worked by two men will clean about 4 to 6 ℔ of lint per hour. A similar, but larger machine, requiring about 1½ horse-power to run it, will turn out 50 to 60 ℔ of Egyptian or 60 to 80 ℔ of Sea Island cleaned cotton per hour. By simple modifications the Macarthy gin can be used for all kinds of cotton. Various attempts have been made to substitute a comb for the knife or beater, and one of the latest productions is the “Universal fibre gin,” in which a series of blunt combs working horizontally replace the solid beater and so-called knife of the Macarthy gin.
Opposed to the various types of roller gins is the “saw gin,” invented by Eli Whitney, an American, in 1792. This machine, under various modifications, is employed for ginning the greater portion of the cotton grown in the Southern States of America. It consists essentially of a series of circular notched disks, the so-called saws, revolving between the interstices of an iron bed
