The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1897-11-05
How Country People Lived In Georgia sixty
YearsrAYo.
Il. ID. Glover, in Bowman Headlight.

The way tho people farmed in my
boyhood days did not yield such re.
suits as are realized now. They did
not make much cotton. Back before
my time they had to pick the lint
from the seed with their fingers. 1t
was part of the family business every
night and rainy day to pick the lint
off the seed SO the women could have
cotton to spin.
In 1882 cotton gins were invented
and some were operated in this coun-
try, but not II o:e than one to etch
county. The farmers would carry their
cotton on horse back for miles to
gin, and but very few of them made
more than spinning cotton.
When our farmers first began to
raise cotton it took two hands to hoe
one row, one hand on either side of
the row, and they did not chop
through it, but thinned it with their
hands. 1t took three or four hands
one day to hoe one acre, and when it
came to picking it; but few hands
could pick 50 pounds in a day. 1t
was the green seed variety, and hard
to pick. They would pull off every
boil and stand straight up to pick it
out, and then stoop down and get
another. So you soc the picking
process was very slow.
The first bales were packed with a
crow bar, were round and about
seven feet long, and weighed from
250 to 800 pounds. After using this
method for few years, they began
to make square bales. It took lots
of timber to build one of these
presses and thirty or forty hands to
raise it and sometimes ono or two
men would be killed. 1t took about
90 yards for tho leevers Of one of
these presses to turn in.
Up to 1910 but very few farmers
made more than one bale of cotton
to the horse. BY 1850 some made
two or three bales to the horse, and
the best hands could pick $50 pounds
day.
Whom I was boy we would pull
off the bolls while the dew was on
them and carry them to the house to
pick at night.
In those days we knew little about
the value Of cotton seed for feed or
manure. We would haul enough
home to plant the next crop and
leave the balance ut the gin, where
they We're thrown out in large heaps
to rot, for it was thought they we're
no good.
The men would rise early and 60
to their work on the farm, and the
women to carding, spinning and
weaving, until about 8 o'clock, when
the horn would blow for breakfast.
We always had meat and bread for
breakfast, but the bread was general
ly "Peter Constant" (corn bread).
"Johnnie Seldom (wheat bread) did
not come very often, about once a
week-Sunday morning. There was
not much wheat raised, and what
was made had to be failed out with
poles or tramped out by horses;
there were no wheat mills like we
have now, but the wheat WAS ground
on corn mills and was bolted by hand
Then we raised ono year what was
expected to use the next-now we
use one year what we expect to mako
the next.
We had dinner about 3 o'clock in
the afternoon and supper about 8
o'clock which very often consisted of
bread ana milk. During the fall
and winter our suppers usually were
made Of roasted potatoes, and tho
whole family would gather around
the hearth and peel and eat them.
About twenty acres to the horse
was the average amount of land cul-
tivated-the rows were run as STRAIGHT
as could be end were made as long
as possible-no attention was
given to saving the land by running
tho rows on Il level, but instead were
often run up and down the hill.
Thousands of acres that are now in
gulleys might have been in a high
state of cultivation had the proper
care been taken to prevent the land
from washing.
The children would eat their sup.
| nor aar1y oD1 h,,r.;nl ocp ko EnI ~