Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-02-24
Careless and Wa. teful Cotton Picking.

Mr.. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, is
deservedly regarded as high authority
on cotton manufactures, but in his
late interview with reporter of the
New York Herald, he says much less
for the cotton States than he might
have said, and has very imperfecIIy
explained the difficulties now at
tending the gathering of the cot
ton crop. He is reported as saying
''There is no great staple of the world so
wastefully handled and prepared for market
as cotton, unless it be sugar Sugar still rests
to great extent under the blight of slavery,
but that burden has been removed from cot
ton, and there is no reason why there should
not be decided improvement in its culture and
handling. II it were properly picked
and carried to the gin all of it that is now
ginned below middling would command from
two to five per cent more, because.it would be
rid of the notes, leaf and dust that level it to
low grade"
Here is where Mr.. Atkinsonis not in
formed. If he will consult any cotton
planter who cultivated cotton before the
war, he will learn that the raw cotton
was not then gathered as carelessly as it
is now. Then the negroes, who were,
as now, the chief laborers in the cotton
crop, were not suffered to gather trash
and bolls with their cotton as now. They
were compelled to pick it clean, and
such trashy, dirty, belly cotton as now
goes into every gin house in the South
was prohibited under the fear of punish
ment. Then there was no hiring OF out
side hands to gather big crops for fear
they would be lost, and, of course, there
was no hurried picking at 81 per 100
pounds. All this is changed. Every
M god ~, L
a direct interest in the cotton he Guilt
Yates; and he is more interested in the
quantity than the quality. If he is a
tenant, or works on shares, he generally
hires cotton pickers as soon as his cotton
begins to open so fast as to cause fear
that he may lose much of it unless
picked out before winter sets in. Hired
hands do their work hurriedly and care
lessly, and as they are paid by the guam
tity picked, they often pick one.fourth
of that in bolls. They don't stop to
pick out trash or bolls from the cotton;
too much time lost at that. The result
Is such an amount of trash in the seed
cotton as was never known twenty
years ago. Then again, quantity being
the magnet, the tenant dislikes to see the
cotton lying on the ground, and he picks
that up as he goes along, and throws it
into his bag. Often it is full of dirt and
dust from beating rains, and that ex-
plains the dust and sand, or dirt, alluded
to by Mr.. Atkinson.
The simple truth is, all or nearly all
the trouble he discusses about cotton
comes from the carelessness of picking
it out. If Mr.. Atkinson had spent a
week or two on cotton farms, and had
seen for himself the condition of the
cotton when carried from the field to
the gin house, he would frankly admit
that the removal of the "blight of sla-
very" from the negro race has not
improved the modes of preparing
cotton for he gin. And the cot
ton grower may admit, at once,
that there is but one remedy for
this evil. Any one who will visit the
ginning establishment of Speers, on
Vance street. Payne. on Poplar street, or
Denies, on Auction street, will easily see
that the trouble is almost entirely in
picking. 1t is positively amazing to be-
lieve and to see that men who grow cot
ton can be so utterly slovenly and care
less as to the gathering of what costs SO
much time and labor Bales are seen at
each of these busy hives of industry which
are SO full of bolls as to cause one to ask,
"Was the cotton picked with the bolls,
or the bolls with the cotton?" Of
course the dirt abounds, too. At each
gin is machine whose only duty is to
separate the bolls from the seed cotton,
and it may truly be said that the dirty,
sldvenly mode of picking out the cotton
crop has given birth to a new invention.
II has compelled the introduction of
new machinery in connection with the
culture of cotton, and the man who can
turn out cheap and good
machine that can be attached to
any machine, and that will
separate the bolls from the cotton before
carrying the latter to the hopper and
gin, will have bonanza worth millions
to him. The negro will never pick out
cotton as it shoAld be. He is generally
a far better cotton grower than the white
man, but when the crop is laid by, and
when bis trash gang" of girls and boys
and hired hands begin to pick, then look
out for bolls. The cotton will always
be carried to the gin house in the condi-
ton MIR. Atkinson deplores, and ssthere is
but the one remedy for this evil, we trust
some genius will stumble upon plan
for attaching to every gin machine to
separate eolls from the cotton. OF
course it must be cheap, or it would not
find general use.