The Springdale news., 1889-09-27
The Cotton Harvest.

Simple as the operation of picking and handling cotton is, it requires a degree of care and judgment, not ap- parent to the casual observer, to har- vest, prepare and market a crop of cotton so as to get the best results in money, while at the same time no other interest on the farm is permit ted to suffer. Labor is the most eX- pensive item connected with the whole business-the manual labor required to simply pull the cotton from the yielding bolls. It is astonishing to consider that it costs not less than five or six dollars to pick a bale of cotton from the stalk and put in the baskets, while the same may be ginned and baled, ready for market for two dol lars, or less, Stain and soil, generally the result of long exposure in the open bolls are the chief causes which affect the relative market values of two samples of cotton. The aim, then, should be to encourage the doing Of large tasks each day, and going over the crop as rapidly as possible. When the fields are white with cotton, every day witnesses a change for the worse in the condition of the lint even if no drop of rain falls on the field. It gets lighter, the color pales under sunlight and repeated dewfaIIs. and trash from deeaying leaves and debris becomes more abundant and persistent. But when the storms of rain and wind fa>l upon the heavy-laden stalks, the lint may be damaged in value in a single day enough to have paid for the pick ing of every pound of the exposed cot ton.
 Let the work of gathering be pushed from the very start until the bulk of the crop is safely housed It is all very well to pick the cotton more or less free of trash and leaf, and to han dle it carefully in the few processes through which it passes before it reaches the market; but 1t Is a very easy matter to be "too particular about trash, and so discourage the pickers by reducing their earnings as to delay the harvesting of the crop and expose it to the far more serious casualty of storms Of rain and wind continued bleaching and blning Many's the time, with "all hands, Y and all that could be induced to come into the field by fair promises and prompt performance, we have pushed the work and succeeded in safely housing picking of several hundred pounds to the acre over q large field just in time to save it from disastrous storm.
 In such cases We have often realized net saving of one cent in the pound on all the cotton gathered during the week, after paying the cost of picking; and the saving is often, or might often be, much moro. Compare a sample of cotton from lot picked the day before a bad spell of weather with a sample from the same field picked after the spell, make allowance for the absolute less in quantity and loss in quality, and the statement just made will be thought very moderate.
 The fact is, the harvesting of cotton and the separation of trash from it, is labor that should bo accomplished by machinery; it is too taxing upon hands, and retards the general results. But if we must harvest by hand, let the improved gin and careful manipu- lation in the modern ginnery do the rest of fhe work
 We beg to remind our readers of the damaged cotton seed so generally com nlained of in some large sections of the