Some of the Grower's Problems
Early in the spring, the farm hands begin the work of getting the seed
beds ready. Upland fields have to be terraced, ditched, and drained by an
elaborate process before the work is well begun. Plowing and sub-soiling
are the least of the planter's worries. He must often chop last year's
stalks with a disc harrow or with a stalk cutter. The spike tooth or the
disc harrow must work again after the plowing is finished. It is
customary to plant cotton in a slightly raised bed, in order that
thinning may be more easily done, and that the soil may be more quickly
warmed. Much planting is still done by hand, one man dropping the seeds
in the long straight furrow and another following close behind him with a
hoe, covering them up; but of late years the one-horse planter and the
two-horse combined lister and planter have come into vogue, and, now that
the tractor is both cheap and serviceable, it is possible to plant two or
more rows at a time.
The Long Season of
Intensive Cultivation
When the tiny seedlings first appear above the fragrant mellow soil, the
planter's work is well begun, but it is only begun, for then comes the
season of cultivating and thinning out. As soon as there are two or three
inches of growth, the first cultivation takes place. How many times the
field is cultivated depends on the planter, the nature of the soil, the
availability of labor and other factors. But the general rule is, the
more cultivations, the more cotton. The first cultivation scrapes away
the soil from the plants, leaving them on a small ridge, where the
thinning-out process can easily be done with a hoe. The stalks are left
from fifteen to twenty inches apart in the hill, the rows being usually
about three and a half feet apart. The next cultivation, usually with a
sweep, pushes the soil back against the plants. Then begins the farmer's
fight against the weeds, each of which seems sturdier and harder to
eradicate than its predecessor. Usually cultivation must take place about
every three weeks.
In June, on the average, the bell-shaped blossoms appear. On the first
day they are cream colored or white; on the second day, they change to a
beautiful wild-rose pink, deepening toward evening to a deeper magenta or
carnation. On the third day they fade completely, and the development of
the boll begins.
The Many Enemies
of the Growing Boll
Of the plants upon which humanity depends, the various species of the
genus Gossypium have probably more enemies, and more relentless enemies,
than any other. Besides army worms, cut worms, locusts, green flies, leaf
bugs, blister mites, and several others, nature has produced and rendered
extremely prolific and hardy, these two particular pests, the boll weevil
and the boll worm. It is said that the collective attacks of all the
insects which feed upon cotton cost the country in the neighborhood of
$60,000,000 every year at pre-war prices. The little gray beetle that the
world knows as the cotton boll weevil is responsible for most of this.
The mother weevil lays her eggs in the bud. As the grubs from the eggs
develop, the bud drops. If a weevil arrives on the scene after the bolls
have begun to form, she lays her eggs in those with a fine indifference.
These bolls will not drop, but the grubs ruin the cotton they contain.
There have been numerous investigations and experiments made to develop a
variety of cotton impervious to the weevil's attacks, as well as to find
another insect willing to meet him in combat and overcome him. Guatamalan
cotton is said to be immune and efforts are being made to transplant it
to the United States. A small ant-like creature called a "kelep" has also
been found, which attacks, kills and devours the weevil, but,
unfortunately, the kelep prefers a warmer clime, and pines away and dies
in even the mild winters of the cotton belt. The boll worm is very
similar to the corn worm with which all housewives are familiar, and
indeed corn is its favorite diet. But cotton will do in a pinch, and,
next to the weevil, he ruins more cotton than any other pest. The boll
weevil cost the country about $25,000,000 yearly, pre-war prices, and the
boll worm about $12,500,000 yearly, enough to justify an even greater
expenditure for investigation and eradication than has yet been made.
Despite the ravage of insects and diseases, when a well-tended field of
cotton is ripening, one would think from the number of bolls per plant,
that the owner's fortune was surely made. Unfortunately, the plants shed
bolls as well as buds and flowers, in great numbers. It has frequently
been noted that even well-fertilized plants upon good, carefully
cultivated soil, will mature only fifteen to twenty per cent. of the
bolls produced.
[Illustration: _Cotton blossoms and bolls at various stages of growth_]
The planter will tell you that he would be willing to stand the boll
weevil, the dropped bolls, the extra cultivations, and all the remainder
of it, if he could only be sure that cotton which did mature would be
picked when it should be picked, and picked with rapidity and care.
Picking is the most laborious, as it is the most picturesque operation on
the plantation. Many types of machine pickers have been introduced, but
there are few planters who will admit that any of them suits his
particular needs. Now, as a hundred years ago, the picking is done by
hand. It is a simple operation, so simple that children ten years old can
do it, and women excel in it. But the best pickers rarely average more
than a hundred pounds a day, and most of them pull much less. Careless
work plays its part, too, for cotton is easily dropped from the boll and
soiled or lost altogether. Leaves and twigs as well as the shell of the
boll frequently cling to the fiber, and are picked with it, and all these
things tend to dirty and discolor it, and lessen its marketability. It
requires about three pounds of cotton with the seed in it, as picked, to
produce one pound of ginned or lint cotton.
There were in the United States, in 1917, a total of 24,272 ginneries, of
which 3,921 were idle. Each active gin produced an average of 526 bales
running bales of cotton. The number of gins shows a tendency to decrease
every year, not rapidly, but surely, and this despite the opposite
tendency of the crop. The Whitney gin of the old days has been improved
beyond the dreams of its inventor. He boasted that one man could do as
much with his machine as ten men without it. Today's gin averages about
five bales a day--a quantity which the negro of old would find difficult
to turn out in a year.
To the gin then, which is located either on the plantation or in the
immediate neighborhood, the mule drawn wagons, driven by negroes as a
rule, bring their loads of cotton.
[Illustration: _Gin bale and compress bale showing reduced bulk of
latter_]
As the downy lint, pulled from the tenacious seeds, rolls into the
receiving bin of the gin, the huge compressors are put to work. The
coarse jute bagging is on hand, and the steel straps spread out. The gin
balers as a rule turn out a bale measuring approximately 28 by 56 by 42
inches, and weighing approximately 500 pounds including twenty pounds of
bagging and straps. The cotton, in being separated from its seeds, has
lost about two-thirds of its weight. But the first process in the long
series that manufacturing entails has been completed, and the cotton is
ready to begin its long journey to the mill. It is usually carted to the
nearest railroad station, and from there shipped to the compressing
point.
The small farmer almost always gets his money for the cotton as it leaves
the gin. His interest in it, therefore, is ended when the buyer there
pays him the current price. The cotton is a market commodity from that
time forth.
The compress is a large and powerful hydraulic press, whose function is
to force the loosely packed gin bale into a density that will make its
handling by the railroads, ships, and warehouses more easy and
economical. The compresses are frequently owned by the railroads.
Gin Bales and
Compress Bales
Before being compressed, the bales are sorted according to grade, and are
then compressed into a smaller sized bale, measuring approximately 28 by
56 by 18 inches, with a density of from twenty-eight to thirty pounds a
square foot. It is this bale which is handled from that time forth,
whether it be for export, for consumption in Northern or Southern mills,
or whether, as sometimes happens, it is shipped from place to place as
market conditions change, and the price offered makes reshipment
profitable.
Movement for
Improving the Bale
It is encouraging to note that the war brought about, under Government
auspices, a very definite movement for the improvement of the bale. The
proposal demands the installation of high pressure baling machines at the
gin, capable of producing a bale with a density of thirty-five pounds a
cubic foot. The trading unit in cotton is one hundred bales, and such a
compression would mean that one hundred bales could be loaded into a
single freight car, and shipped directly to the export point or
warehouse. The present practice requires three cars to carry the ginnery
bales to the compressor, and two cars to carry the compressed bales to
the port, warehouse, or mill. The saving in freight and handling is
obvious. It needs only a glance at the photograph of the two bales side
by side to see the possible saving in waste and "city crop," or tare. The
obstacles in the way of such an improvement are those which face any
revolutionary change in commercial methods. Established practice,
invested capital, and the natural conservatism of human nature militate
against quick improvement.