COTTON,
ITS PROGRESS FROM THE
FIELD TO THE NEEDLE:
BEING A BRIEF SKETCH OF
THE CULTURE OF THE PLANT,
ITS PICKING, CLEANING, PACKING, SHIPMENT, AND MANUFACTURE.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY ROBERT LOGAN & CO.,
51 DEY-STREET.
1855.
OLIVER & BROTHER, Steam Printers,
No. 32 Beckman-Street, New-York.
[3]PREFACE.
Among the utilitarian gifts of nature and art we know of none in moregeneral use, or of greater practical value, than sewing-cotton. Thetaste which turns into graceful shapes the products of the loom, theexecutive skill which converts them into convenient and elegant apparel,would be powerless without this simple accessory. It is the food of theneedle, and might almost be called the thread of life to thousands ofthe gentler sex. Yet as it passes through the delicate fingers ofmothers, wives, and daughters, ministering to so many wants, andcreating so many beautiful superfluities, little thought is bestowedupon the labor, the care, the dexterity, and the scientific abilityrequired in producing the article. The cultivation of the raw material,the processes of picking, ginning, packing, shipping, combing, spinning,and twisting, are among the most interesting operations in the wholerange of agriculture and manufactures; and we think the ladies, forwhose especial convenience such a vast amount of industry, skill, andtalent is employed, will not be unwilling to trace with us in a familiarway the progress of this great domestic staple from the field to theneedle.
We therefore claim their attention to the following short treatise, fromwhich, without being fatigued by dry details, they may derive atolerably accurate idea of what capital, labor, and science have done tobring to its present perfection the simple article of sewing-cotton.
[4]CULTIVATION OF THE COTTON PLANT.
The cotton-planting season in all the Southern States commences inApril. The seed is sown in drills, a negro girl following the lightplough which makes the furrow, and throwing the seed into the shallowtrench as she moves along. A harrow follows to cover up the deposits,and the work of "planting" is completed. About two and a half bushels ofseed are required for an acre of ground.
In a week or ten days the cotton is "up," when a small plough is runalong the drills, throwing the earth from the tender plants. The nextprocess is "scraping;" in other words, thinning out and earthing up theplants, so as to leave each in the centre of a little hill, some twofeet distant from its nearest neighbors. The dexterity and accuracy withwhich this feat is accomplished are wonderful; and there are few[5]spectacles more animated and picturesque than that of a hundred activefield-hands flourishing their bright hoes among the young vegetation,each striving to outstrip the others in "hoeing out his row." Severalploughings and hoeings intervene between the first of May and the lastof June.
In