II. The Wonderful Gift of Good King Cotton
Did you ever sing "Dixie Land?" "Dixie" is a loving nickname for our warm southern states, where cotton grows over hundreds of miles of country. The white men who own the cotton fields love their homes, and the cotton plant, and the song. So do the negroes who work the sunny fields. The song begins: "Away down South in the land of cotton." It is sung to a gay American tune that makes your feet feel like dancing. But you will never know what a happy song it is unless you hear it sung by moonlight in a camp of negro cotton pickers, to the playing of banjos.
A hundred years ago so much cotton was grown in our Southern states, and it was worth so much money that it was called King Cotton, ruler of the cloth market. Cotton is still King, for there is more cotton clothing used than all the wool and silk and linen put together. Our Southern states grow three-fourths of all the cotton in the world. So you see it is "Dixie Land" cotton that is King.
When you think of a king you think of something big and strong, 1ike the oak tree that is king of the forest, or the lion, king of the jungle, don't you? The cotton plant is more like a queen. It is a proud, dainty little bush, very clean and bright, and about four feet high. It is as par-tic-u-lar about the ground under its feet as Queen Elizabeth. You know the story about Sir Walter Raleigh, who spread his velvet cloak on the mud for the great Queen to walk on? Cotton wants soft, warm soil as fine and rich as velvet to grow in, and it will not have common weeds about it. It wants to stand all alone, and have two or three feet of room to spread its green satin skirts. It has leaf like a three-lobed maple, and a blossom much like a pink holly-hock.
Like a real queen the cotton blossom has several gowns to wear. For its coming out party it has a snow white silk petticoat. The newspapers always mention it, saying: "Cotton is in blossom and looks well." Like wheat, cotton is always getting its name in the papers. It soon gets tired of its coming-out gown and changes it for one of shell pink, then for a rose pink. The blossom does not
