in sea island cotton culture." Any one hand, with ordinary implements and management, can make four times as much cotton as he can gather." Naturally this suggests the reflection, what is to be done, in a region devoted almost exclusively to cotton culture, with the three hands not needed during the cultivation of the crop, but of paramount importance during the picking season. What industries can be introduced to give them employment? It would seem, whatever they are, they must be of such a character as is suited not only to cheap labor, but to cheapen labor. Already the cotton picker pockets one-sixth of the gross value of the crop, and is a heavy burden on the producer. At $7.50 per bale, which is below the actual cost of picking, it requires an expenditure of $40,000,000 to $45,000,000 to gather the crops now made. This large sum is paid out in the space of two months for work in which the most unskilled and least robust laborers excel. Just here there is a gorge in the industry of the cotton belt, piling up a vast reserve of stagnant energies to surmount the obstacle of cotton picking. Should it ever be removed, and machinery be invented to reduce the cost of this work, improvements in culture would follow so rapidly, and the product of cotton could be so greatly increased, that, besides being used for clothing, it might become one of the cheapest materials for building purposes. Everywhere, in the production of this staple, improvements are possible to an indefinite extent; but when cotton picking is reached, there, as in gold digging, the only resource is a human being, an unskilled drudge, at low wages. This absolute dependence of cotton production on purely human labor has not been without its humanizing influences, and king cotton has been more powerful to preserve friendly relations between the stronger and the weaker race than military governors and reconstruction acts. The comparatively small amount of manual labor necessary for crops of grain or hay might, had such crops replaced the culture of cotton, have left the negro with as little support on American soil as the Chinaman, and their hegira to the West, or to Africa, might have been possible; as it is, the home of the cotton pickers has been made too soft and easy a place to them to render any such occurrence at all probable.

DISEASES AND ENEMIES.

As has been already stated, the long staple cotton is a more vigorous grower and less subject to diseases than upland cotton. Neither sore shin, blight, rust, or the shedding of fruit in unfavorable seasons, seems to affect it to the same extent. Its enemies are in the vegetable kingdom, weeds and grass, especially the nut grass and the Bermuda, and against these the constant and skillful use of the hoe and plow are the only safe

guards. The most dreaded enemy of the crop is the cotton caterpillar, which makes its appearance in warm wet spells in the latter part of summer, and speedily consumes the foliage. At one time so great and constant were the depredations of these worms, that it was feared that they would, as they did for some years, put a stop to the profitable culture of this crop. Now, however, by the use of paris green the planter counts securely on contending successfully with them, and no crop has been lost in late years where it has been used in season. A mixture of one pound of paris green, one of roşin, and forty pounds of flour, is dusted by hand over the leaves on the first appearance of the worm, and this inexpensive process secures exemption from their ravages, even when they come in such numbers and work with such rapidity, that the portion of a field not treated to the mixture in consequence of the intervention of Sunday, is consumed beyond remedy.

PREPARATION OF THE COTTON FOR MARKET.

When the cotton has been picked, weighed and housed, it is next spread out in the sun, on what is called "an arbor." This is a platform, usually made of inch boards, raised a few feet above the ground and some twenty-five feet, or more square. Here the sun and air dries the cotton, preventing it from heating, which it is liable to do when stored in bulk, and it is also thought to cause the lint to absorb some of the oil in the seed, which adds to the silky lustre of the fibre. After being thus dried, it may be either stored or passed at once to the "whipper," a machine that knocks out the dust and sand, and leaves the cotton whiter and more open. Formerly, when the price was higher than it is at present, it was all assorted. A hand was given one hundred and fifty pounds of seed cotton as a day's task, which he thoroughly overhauled, picked out all specks, stained cotton, fragments of leaf, etc. At present, however, this is usually done by two hands, who examine the cotton as it passes into the gin, and two others behind the gin, who pick out cracked seed, motes, etc., as the lint issues from the gin. The roller gin in some form has always been used for detaching the lint from black seed cotton. Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, reports its use among the Hindoos in his time. The first roller gin used in this country was one constructed in 1788, by Mr. Bissell, of Georgia, the gentleman already mentioned as having introduced this variety of cotton. It consisted of two short wooden rollers moving in opposite directions, each turned by a boy or girl, and giving, as the result of a day's work, five pounds of lint cotton. To this succeeded the foot or treadle gin, imported from the West Indies, where they had been in use, having reached

there with this varieiy of cotton seed, descendants, doubtless, of the Hindoo gins, mentioned by Nearchus. In 1790, Dr. Joseph Eve, a distinguished physician and poet, then of the Bahama islands, but subsequently a resident in Georgia, near Augusta, made great improvements in this gin, and adapted it to be run by horse or water power. It was claimed that his gin would detach the seed from short staple cotton; but it appears not to have succeeded in doing this. Other improvements took place in the roller gin, from time to time; and about 1840, F. McCarthy, of Alabama, devised a machine which bears his name, and has been in use ever since on the sea islands. Shortly after this, small steam engines were used with the McCarthy gin, and now oxen and horses have been discarded and all the gins on the sea islands are run by steam power. A two horse power is required for each gin, which turns out on an average a bale weighing three hundred and fifty pounds as a day's work. There is a recent English improvement of the McCarthy gin, known on the sea islands as the double McCarthy. This gin gives two bales in a day's work; but as it requires greater skill to attend it, they are not in general use; two, however, are in successful operation in the large ginhouse of Mr. John G. Nichols, on St. Helena island.

The great subdivision of the land into small farms under independent management, renders it impracticable for each cotton planter, as formerly, to have a gin and ginhouse of his own. To meet this state of things, "toll" gins have been established. They are usually in the hands of store-keepers at the various boat landings. The largest establishment of this sort is the one above mentioned on St. Helena island. Here ten gins under one shelter are run by one steam engine. Bagging is kept on hand for the convenience of customers, and the cotton is either purchased by the proprietor of the gin, or shipped by him directly from the ginhouse to any American or European port the planter may prefer. There being a large store on the premises, where the wants of the planters are supplied throughout the year, and a skilled machinist being in constant. attendance on the gins, to keep everything running in the best order, it is much patronized. Almost the entire crop is prepared and marketed here, and planters, even as remote as Edisto island, bring their cotton to be ginned and disposed of at this gin, saving thereby, as they say, the heavy charges of wharfage, storage, insurance and commission, which are incurred when sent to city factors to be sold. This establishment is worked, in connection with others of a similar character along the coast of Georgia, and in Florida, which together handle and dispose of eight thousand or nine thousand bales of long staple cotton annually.

The usual charge at these gins is three and a half to four cents per pound, lint, and they are said to pay well. The cotton is packed in

Dundee bagging, in round bales. No press is used, as it is thought it would injure the fibre. The work is done by hand, the cotton being beaten into the bag with a pestle. At the large ginhouse on St. Helena, however, even this work is accomplished by machinery. The bag is conveniently suspended from an iron hoop, and a disc of two inch plank, exactly fitting the bag, and moved by steam, pushes the cotton in, securing greater dispatch and accuracy in the packing.

The seed is used for manure, and when sold for this purpose, brings twenty-five to thirty-five cents per bushel of forty pounds. In 1880, only about fifty tons were exported from Charleston, chiefly to Egypt, to be used as planting seed. In this connection an incident related by Governor Seabrook illustrates the difficulties attending the handling of newly introduced products. In 1796, on Mr. Brisbane's White Point plantation, in St. Paul's Parish, the disposition to be made of the cotton seed, which "the gins began to furnish freely, became a perplexing question. Being carelessly thrown on the ground, the hogs ate it and they died. It was then put into pens, but the pigs found their way between the interstices of the rails and shared the fate of their elders. As a last resort, and with a view to be rid of the nuisance, it was deposited in a small creek contiguous to the Mansion House. There, at low tide, it soon generated a miasmatic odor, which, when the wind was favorable, was so offensive as to create a strong feeling against the future culture of the crop."

What has been written refers distinctly to the sea islands. A considerable quantity of long staple cotton in addition is grown on the mainlands and is known as Santees and as mains. The general economy of the culture is the same as on the sea islands. The seed is obtained annually or biennially from the islands, as it is thought to deteriorate very rapidly on the mainland. In the absence of determinate experiments for a series of years it is not easy to say what the cause of this deterioration is, or even if it is due to causes of a permanent character. That the seed does deteriorate is a fact beyond question. But whether it would do so if not exposed to hybridization with uplands, and if the selections were made with the same skill and patience that is shown by the sea island planters, cannot be said to have been demonstrated. To be perfectly secure from the influence of uplands it should be planted at least three miles distant from it, that being determined as the range of the bee whose search for honey and pollen is the fruitful source of this miscegenation. New factors too might have to be taken into consideration in the selection of the seed on new soils and in a new climate. Crops of sea island cotton have been made as high up as Orangeburg and Aiken counties. The yield was as good as on the coast, and the staple, while ranking well in the market, did not command the higher prices. Were a serious effort made for a

number of years, it is not improbable that the culture of this high-priced cotton might be much extended.

It is difficult to find a satisfactory answer to the question why is long staple cotton planted exclusively on the coast. Uplands have been tried there, and it has been found that they yield no more than long staple, which of course caused their abandonment as less profitable. The only explanation offered is to refer this case to that general law of cultivated plants, that their culture is most profitable at the northern limit at which they can be grown, inasmuch as their yield at that point is greater, their cultivation cheaper, the period of growth being shorter, and their product of better quality. This certainly is true to a large extent of cotton. Latitude is the only reason that can be given why the Carolina long staples are superior to those of Florida and Georgia. Cotton samplers say that the same is true of uplands, and the staple grown near the mountains are finer, stronger, and more even than the crops raised south of them. The rapid advance that cotton culture is making in the Piedmont country would seem to show that its culture there was being found more profitable than further south.

THE COST OF COTTON PRODUCTION.

The cost of production may be considered from two points of view. First, the actual cost to certain producers, of whom inquiry has been made. Second, what may be termed the rational cost, that is, the labor, material and capital necessarily expended in production, directly or indirectly, by the producer himself, or by some one else. The first is real, but by no means expresses everything involved. For instance, on unsaleable land, a landholder, with little or no expenditure of capital, may produce a certain amount of cotton with labor given in return for debts that could not be otherwise collected. Such cotton would cost almost nothing to the producer. Between this and the opposite extreme, where the land had been bought above its real value, and a large expenditure made in the culture, there is every variation of individual experience— from one of immense profits, to one ending directly in bankruptcy. The rational cost, on the other hand, is purely theoretical; in estimating the cost of each item of expenditure, it must be generalized and reduced to an average that does not, perhaps, conform exactly to the experience of any individual. It summarizes these items, and leaves them recorded for consideration. Both methods are given. Messrs. Hinson & Rivers, on James' island, say $80 a bale of 400 pounds, or 20 cents per pound. Dr. A. B. Rose, of Charleston, puts the cost at $70 per acre, which should yield a bale of 350 pounds, which gives, likewise, 20 cents per pound. One of