Morning journal and courier., 1880-10-14
Price Four Cents.

| GO the amount or laQQ one man with 1 a mule and blow can prepare for planting I gave rise to the idea of ''forty acres and a l mule, " so current few years since among the freedmen as to be their favored position, | gift from ''Uncle Sam" They have, a great many of them, their acres and mules but ob- tained them by the sweat of their brows. Forty acres is the amount of land a smart man can put into cotton with one mule and blow, and when we hear the expression con- corning planter that he is working ten blows, " 1t means about 400 acres under culti- Vatlon in cotton. In April Cor March, if the
 season is early) the seed, a black thing about
 the size of a small white bean, is dropped in
 rows very much our farmers plant peas,
 except that the larger planters and many of
 the smaller ones use patent drills drawn by 8
 mule. The rows are about three feet apart
 and the seed is dropped quite thick. If
 long, wet, cold spell comes on
 after planting, it very often has to
 be done over again. The plant when young
 looks very much like our bean, but after get
 ting foot high branches out like rosebush
 or a tree. It grows very slowly. In May,
 after it is about three inches in height, 'tcut-
 ting out" takes place. That is, superfuous
 plants are cut out, leaving about twelve to
 fifteen inches between the plants remaining
 in the rows. From this time until the blos-
 soms appear, say two months the crop is
 worked, '' that is plowed between the rows
 with scooter or ''bull tongue an apo1-
 ogy for small blow, and the grass and weeds
 cut down. This working the crop is very im-
 portant. as upon it depend the size of the
 plant and the number of balls upon it, and
 very often also the credit of the farmer or
 'trenter" Gas negroes who rent small tracts and raise @ few bales, are called) with the merchants who furnish them supplies. If merchant riding around some fine morning on his horse through the plantations finds Sam's crop is getting too much grass in it, c mi off mt be fn work and gets his crop worked" And if Sam persists in loafing around, and his crop is entirely neglected, very likely his mule, which is mortgaged to the same merchant, to be paid for in cotton at the end of the sea- son, is taken and he finds himself $75 or $1OO in debt, which it will take his profits an- other year to pay off.
 In August, and often in July, the plant begins to bloom and I have seen blossoms as late as November 1. The blossom is very like old-fashioned hollyhock, only not so large. white at first and before 1t dies turning to deep pink. After the blossom dies, in side the four tiny green leaves which re- main, find little round green boil, which keeps on gaining under the hot sun and CO., pious dews of the outh until 1t reaches the size of a small peach, when 1t begins to open at the point and inside can be seen the white cotton. As the boil opens, the shell, now in four parts, turns black and hard, and the
 
 cotton picker, unless his hands are hard and calloused, has pretty sore set of fingers when night comes. This boil has a serious enemy while green, in boll-worm, which bores into it. and, like the chestnut-worm, makes a house of it, all stocked with a seasons suprly of food. Sometimes the boll-worm does great damage, but rule its ravages are limited. The greatest enemy the plant has is the caterpillar, generally known the cotton-worm. Most of your readers have seen in the North a worm that measures it's length (about an inch) as it moves along, called the inch-worm by some, or by others the measuring-worm. That is the cotton-worm of the South. They are bred in three successive crops or times by brown moth, and do very little damage until the third crop of them is matched out. Then look out. A field will be green and b:ossoming one day, the next nearly stripped of its foliage and blossoms, and the worms even eat up the smaller bolls. I have stood 1n field and could hear them gnaw- ing away like an army of wood borers. have ridden or driven for miles through plantation after plantation where the stalks were as leafess and as brown as if a fire had swept through them. Paris green has been used great deal this year to save the crops, and with great success. It does for the cotton field what in New England it has done for the potato field-saves the leaves and consequently the crop. prophecy that after this the cotton-worm will not be dread ed as in the past. In some sections, partlcu- larly the black belt, they have done much damage this year, and half crop will be the result there. Sometimes a long, wet cold spell of weather will cause the plant to rust and the bulbs turn brown and die; leaves ditto. Sometimes too much dry weather has the same effect, and on the whole planters are not sure of good, full crop until it is gathered. Oftentimes in September and Octo- Der rainy weather will retard picking out the cotton until the frost comes, and much of the crop that might be saved is lost from lack of time to pick it. Last year I saw picking going on in December. Generally picking is over by December 1. This year the weather has been fine and cotton has opened very fast. The fields are white and cotton-pickers are in great demand. Every little fellow that is big enough to tote sack is in the fields from sunrise till dark, and yet the cry is, ''Where can I get more hands to pick cotton ?" The average plant grows about two feet in height. In some very rich fields, however, the plant grows three or four feet high. Too rank growth is not desired, the leaves shade the bolls too much from the sum- and they rot and fall off, A good field with the plants aver aging two feet high, will produce bale to the acre. The average production of Ala bama and Georgia is one-half bale to the acre.
 Picking cotton, to one unused to the labor, is very tiresome work. It is picked of course in a stopping position, which l remember in my boyhood very back-aching matter. It is quite interesting to watch the process. Gangs of six to ten work together, usually taking twice as many rows through the field. At one side of the field are the great baskets, holding three or four bushels, into which the cotton is emptied out of the cotton bags slung on one side (the right similar in shape to the haversacks our soldiers used to carry L. nrf picker in good field can pick $50 to 400 pounds day and pickers are usually paid 50c hundred, and as they are in demand for about three months, they get good deal of money if they stick to the fields. The large baskets are carried to the gin house if there is one on the plantation, and when sufficient is in the house for days work 1t is ginned or sepa- rated from the seeds and baled. Ginning also removes the dirt which sometimes ad- heres to the cotton that grows nearest the ground. New cotton gins are much 1m- proved over the old styles and an improved gin will separate from six to eight bales of cotton day the older styles run by mule power only two three. cotton gin is simply series of small, fine circular saws about one or two inches apart, which have hooked teeth. These teeth catch the lint cot ton and tear it from the seeds, and by fan expel the lint into close room, from which it is taken in baskets to the press and baled. The seed is made use of for fertilizer or sent to oil mills where the oil is This oil, it is said, makes very fine ''Olive oil," and much of it goes to France Spain and Italy, and comes back nicely bottled as pure Olive oil. The scrap makes fine food for cattle, and is pressed into large cakes and sold for that purpose.
 In Rome there are five houses that make business of buying and shipping cotton, and every day these houses send out postal cards to merchants doing business within a radius of 15o miles, giving quotations of the differ ent grades These quotations are guide to the merchants in buying of the producer. It is curious to watch the streets of good sized town in the cotton season. Perhaps fifty bales are on the street, in all sorts of vehicles. The producer has his bale cut and sampled by some buyer, who grades the sam pie, middlings perhaps, or low middlings, and bids say SIG. on the sample. The producer then goes from one buyer to another, getting higher bids if he can, until the highest point is reached say 1Oc., when he returns to the one who cuts the bale, who has the privilege of the last bid if he wishes it. In this way tbe producer gets all his cotton is