to the late James King, of St. Paul's parish. By him it was freely used before the late war with Great Britain.

"As slovenly as was originally the tillage of the cotton plant, the preparation of its produce for market was much more so. It was, indeed, so badly cleaned, as to be deemed suitable only to the coarser fabrics. Up to about the year 1820, the gatherers took no especial pains to abstract the decayed leaves. The wool was sunned all day, and ginned frequently with the stained particles incorporated with it. These were removed in the process of moting, which was effected by women sitting on the floor, where it was beaten with twigs. During the operation of ginning, no bags or boxes received the cotton, and oftentimes large quantities were thrown together until the moters were prepared to examine them. In packing, an old iron axletree, or wooden pestle, the present instrument, was used. There were no re-inspectors of the cotton before it was deposited in the bag, in which the spinner would frequently find, in addition to a large supply of leaves and crushed seeds, potato skins, parts of old garments, and occasionally a jack-knife. With many, the cotton was ginned, moted, and packed in the same room. Very different indeed are the present processes, or rather the modes in which they are severally performed. Separate rooms for the seed and ginned cottons, as well as for the wool, which, after it is gathered, is never exposed to the sun, have long been considered necessary, in the sea-board parishes, to ensure the proper after-handling of the crop. There are required a room for the whipper, if one be employed, which extracts the dirt and imperfect filaments; another for the assorters, who, provided with boxes for their clean cotton, perform their work before a long table, covered with wire, or wooden slats, the eighth of an inch apart; a third for the moters, who also stand before a latticed table, and, as often as a handful of cotton is prepared, it is thrown into a wooden box, about three feet from the floor, and secured to the sides of the building immediately behind the moters respectively; a small room for the moted cotton, and one for the packer, usually adjoining it; and a house or room, proportioned to the force employed, for the ginners, in which are boxes for the seed cotton in the rear of the operators, and boxes under the machines for the ginned cotton. The houses are lined on the inside with planed boards, and the windows of the assorting and moting rooms, and the gin-house, are glazed. All these accommodations are now to be found on nearly every plantation on the Sea Islands and the adjacent country, and, it is said, in many of the upper parishes.

"The amount of labour expended in a day in preparing one bag of superfine cotton, of 300 lbs. weight, the produce of 1500 lbs. in the seed, is as follows, viz. :—

"It will thus appear, that if the foot-gin be used in the ordinary way, which, with a few exceptions, is the invariable practice, fifty-four labourers, at an expense to the owner of twenty-seven dollars, estimating their services at fifty cents per day respectively, are necessary to the getting of one bag of cotton properly cleaned. When the gins are propelled by steam, six persons only, male or female, to feed them, are required. If the wool be separated from the seed by Eaves's improved gin, to which steam power is applied, the aid of three men will be needed. In all other respects the labour is the same.

"The cultivation and preparation of cotton, as described in these pages, is peculiarly applicable to the southern half only of the long staple region. In the northern portion, but especially in the Santee country, there are differences in each, which it is important should be briefly noticed. Five acres to the hand, of which generally only one-third is manured, are planted. The ridges are four feet from each other, and the plants stand from fifteen to twenty inches apart. In the culture of the crop, a machine of a triangular shape, called the sweep,' is used by a few as an assistant to the hoe. The morning after the cotton is gathered, according to the wonted usage, it is assorted by the pickers; but, con

trary to the plan of the sea-board, not afterwards; unless one or two hands, who attend to the scaffold, may be said to perform that service. The task in moting is from twenty to twenty-five lbs. The material points of difference, then, in the handling of the crop, between the lower and upper parishes, or the former and Santee growers, consist in the processes of assorting and moting. The labour of the first is chiefly expended in cleaning the cotton in the seed; that of the other, after it is ginned. This, probably, arises from the characteristic features of the two staples. Unless great caution be exercised in the moting of fine cottons, the fibres will entangle, and the wool become lumpy and stringy. These results do not take place when the coarser qualities are cleaned in the ginned state.

6

"For the silky cottons produced on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the planter is indebted to the botanical skill and laudable perseverance of Kinsey Burden, Sen., of St. John's, Colleton. An improvement in the texture of the wool engaged his earnest attention as early as 1804 or 1805. In one of those years, he raised from selected seed a 'pocket' of cotton, worth, in the English market, twenty-five cents per lb. more than any other cottons at any price.' From that time he laboured zealously in this new branch of his profession until 1826, when he sold his first full crop, sixty bags, at 110 cents per lb. The crop of the following year commanded 125 cents per lb. It is proper here to observe, that between 1821 and 1829, the average price of common long cotton was twenty-four cents, and of the superior kinds from thirty-five to sixty cents. Mr. Burden's discovery was held to be so valuable to the state, that he was induced to forward a memorial to the legislature, offering to sell his secret for 200,000 dollars; he resigning all his seed, except what was necessary for his own crop, and communicating the mode of perpetuating the silky properties of the new cotton fibre. The memorial, for reasons satisfactory to the applicant, was never presented.

"Cotton may appropriately be divided into three kinds : 1st, Herbaceous cotton; 2nd, shrub cotton; 3rd, tree cotton. The first is the most useful, and is cultivated in nearly every country congenial to the gossypium. It exists native at Aleppo, in Upper Egypt, Arabia, and in Senegal. Of the seven varieties of the shrub cotton, one or other grows spontaneously in the tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and America. In the latter continent, the hirsutum, or hairy (seeds greenish), and the Barbadense, or Barbadoes cotton (a black seed), are indigenous. To the shrub species all the South American, and most of the West India cotton, which is long-stapled, is to be referred. The tree cotton, according to one authority, grows in India, China, Egypt, the interior and western coast of Africa, and in some parts of America; by another, it is a native of India, Egypt, and Arabia.

"Quatremere Disjouval, a prominent member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, in speaking of the influence of climate on the texture and quality of cotton, advances the following hypothesis :-That the produce of the countries immediately under or nearest the equator, is to be considered the type of excellence, and is distinguished by its fine silky fibre, the depth and peculiarity of its colour, and the height and permanency of the plant. In proportion, he remarks, as we recede from the equator, these strongly marked characters disappear, the fibre becomes coarse, its colour perfect white, and, on the shores of the Mediterranean, we behold the lofty and flourishing tree of Hindostan, dwindled down into a stunted annual shrub. Of these broad and unqualified assertions, there is but one that rests on a tenable basis :-that the perennial plant of the equator becomes an annual in a higher latitude. The averment, that the finest and the deepest coloured cotton is the produce of the tropical countries, is reiterated on even higher authority. This is false, as a general proposition, and only true concerning locations. The coarsest cottons known in commerce, except some from Peru, between 5 deg. and 15 deg. south, which are of a dark hue, and as coarse as the wool of sheep, are the Bengal, 24 deg. north, and the Surat, 21 deg. 10 min. north; the finest, and in all other respects the best, cottons are produced on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 10 deg. beyond the Tropic of Cancer. To the latter, as well as those of the Isle of France, 20 deg. 9 min. south, Dacca, 23 deg. 55 min. north, and Egypt, about 30 deg. north, the cotton of Guiana, within 5 deg. of the equator, is decidedly inferior. The worst native cotton in the East grows in Java, 7 deg. south. The cottons of South America, in the hottest region, it is true, are of a better quality than Rees' Encyclopædia ;" article Cotton.

those of the Levant; on the other hand, some of the West India kinds are lower in value than the green seed varieties of this country. These too, as is especially the case in our state, oft-times grow within a few miles of the long-staple cotton, and, in certain localities, side by side; yet the best sorts of the latter are worth 800 per cent more than the best sorts of the former. So much for the effect of climate on the fibre of cotton, in opposition to the gradation of the French philosopher's system. With regard to the colour of cotton, the yellowish hue of which is indicative of fineness, climate has but an inconsiderable effect. The cottons on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia are tinged, and some varieties deeply, with yellow; while the inland districts of those states, and their more southern neighbours, as far as the Red river, produce cotton of great whiteness, and far inferior in strength and fineness. A portion of the West India cotton is of a cream colour; and some from India is represented to have a slight tinge of Aurora.' The cottons of Bengal, Madras, and Surat, of Smyrna, Cyprus, Salonica, and all parts of the Levant, are distinguished by their want of colour; this is also said of Siam, famous for its nankeen. The Dacca cotton is deeply coloured, and, although it is consumed in that province, and consequently unknown in commerce, still, from an examination of the muslin, denominated in hyperbolical language, webs of woven wind,' and 'which can hardly be felt when expanded,' it has been satisfactorily ascertained to be of a coarser fibre than the better qualities of our cottons, grown near the ocean. While one pound of that cotton, in a single thread, would extend to the distance only of 115 miles, two furlongs, and sixty yards, cotton yarn is spun in England, making 350 hanks to the lb. weight, each hank measuring 840 yards, and the whole forming a thread of 167 miles in length. Further, 420 hanks certainly, and, it is asserted, from 480 to 500 hanks, per lb., have been spun in Manchester with cotton from South Carolina; thus yielding a thread from 197 to over 238 miles long.

"The valuable properties of cotton wool, in their relative order, are strength, fineness, length, evenness and freedom from knots and entanglements. The superiority of our Sea Island cotton over all other kinds, * is owing to their fibres being spiral springs, singularly adapted to the spinning process, readily entwining with, and sliding over, each other, during the formation of a thread, with an easy elastic force. The filaments of these cottons vary from one to two inches, and in breadth from 1-1500th to 1-3000th of an inch.'

"A short time after cotton, as a crop, had been successfully cultivated in Carolina, it was attacked, in Georgia, by the caterpillar, noctua xylina, or cotton-moth, which made its appearance as early as 1793; seven years afterwards, in South Carolina. In 1804, the crops, which would have been devoured by them, were, with the enemy, effectually destroyed by the hurricane of that year. In 1825, the visit of the worm was renewed, and its ravages were universal and complete. In 1827, 1829, 1833, 1834, 1840, 1841, and 1843, the lower parishes generally, or particular locations, suffered greatly by its depredations. "That the cotton-moth frequently survives the frosty season, is nearly certain. An examination of the neighbouring woods, especially after a mild winter, has often been successfully made for that purpose.

“The injury that has often been committed by the caterpillar is almost incredible. In one week they have denuded of its foliage every stalk in the largest field. The cotton plant of Guiana was very subject to the attack of the chenille, as the caterpillar is there called. In the Bahamas, between March and September, 1788, no less than 280 tons of cotton, on a moderate scale, were devoured by this worm. Among the causes of failure of the crop in that quarter, as ascertained by answers of the most intelligent and experienced planters to questions proposed by the House of Assembly, the most prominent is the destruction by the chenille. The same cause produced the abandonment of the gossypium culture in several of the West India islands.

"The attack of the caterpillar in Carolina is not annual. This of itself is satisfactory evidence, that the evolution of the larvæ, and the transformations and death

* Ten years ago, the difference between the staple of our Sea Island cotton, and that of Egypt, Brazil, and some of the West India sorts, was about twenty per cent in favour of the former. Owing to a more favourable climate, superior husbandry, and the raising of superfine qualities, the difference may now be estimated at from thirty to fifty per cent, and over, if the silkiest kinds

be included.

of the insect, or the appearance and disappearance of the chenille, are regulated or influenced by particular states of the atmosphere;' and probably, as close observers have remarked, by the phases or changes of the moon. Every effort which the most scrutinising and active minds have hitherto suggested to prevent their propagation, or to render innoxious the career of these insatiable depredators, has utterly failed. From this consideration, added to their great tenacity of life and extraordinary fecundity, it is supposed that the ordinary means of effecting either of those desirable ends will never succeed. The caterpillar, after being plunged into spirits of turpentine, or corrosive sublimate, is as ready for his all-day meal, as though it had been immersed in pure water. If the section of the field in which the pupa only are seen, be burnt, the progress of the worm, as experience testifies, will scarcely be impeded. Lime will quickly produce death, and so will oil rubbed on the abdomen, but how can these be used efficaciously on the larvæ, when from 500 to 1000 on a plant are not unfrequently seen? Or can the pupa, reposing in their glutinous cells, be affected by any external application? In this way the planter reasons, and when the enemy appears, no means whatever are now employed to preserve the fruits of his labour."-Mr. Seabrook on the Cultivation of Cotton.

Mr. Townsend, of Carolina, adopted the following plan for destroying these insects :1. His people searched for and killed both the worm and the chrysalis of the first brood.

2. On the appearance of the second brood, he scattered corn over the field to invite the notice of the birds, and while they depredated on the worms on the tops of the stalks and their upper limbs, the turkeys destroyed the enemy on the lower branches.

3. When in the aurelia state, the negroes crushed them between their fingers.

4. Some patches of cotton, where the caterpillars were very thick, and the birds and turkeys could not get access to them, were destroyed.

5. The tops of the plants, and the ends of all the tender and luxuriant branches, where the eggs of the butterfly are usually deposited, were cut off.

"By these means, resolutely pursued, although at one time the prospect of checking the depredators was almost cheerless, not the slightest injury to the field was sustained.* As the reasons for the measures adopted by Mr. Townsend are, perhaps, apparent, it behoves the planter to reflect that, on the first visitt of the caterpillars, while their number is few, they might be, if not entirely got rid of, materially lessened; that in the pupa state they are easily detected, and, of course, as easily killed; and that while early and indefatigable exertions may be crowned with success, delay or tardiness in his operations will certainly be fatal. "In Georgia, the attack of the red bug, a winged insect with a long proboscis, with which it pierces the green pods, extracting the juices of the seed, and leaving the capsules blighted and hard, and the cotton stained of a deep yellow or red colour, are coeval with that of the caterpillar. Although this insect is an occasional depredator in the fields of this state, yet no material loss has been sustained by it. This is, also, true of the apata monachus, a species of the scarable, the larvae of which, eating with a revolving motion, penetrate to the wood and pith of the cotton stalk. Red bugs, that prey on the roots and leaves of cotton, usually early in May, though their appearance is not uncommon in April, are certainly becoming more destructive and extensive in their visits. By the latter, the growth of the plant is in general only checked; but the former, by arresting the ascent and circulation of the sap, generates a disease, which, if it do not destroy, renders the plants comparatively barren. The grub or cut-worm, if the spring be cold, and east winds prevail, is a troublesome, but not a formidable, enemy. The blast or blight is now, perhaps,

*The experiment cost Mr. Townsend two acres and a half of cotton, about fifteen bushels of corn, and the work of all his people for about five days. This gentleman was roused to unusual action by the reflection, founded on analogical reasoning, that, of one moth of feeble wing and tender body, which a vigilant eye might discover and destroy, the progeny in six weeks amounted to at least 26,000,000 of worms.

This is communicated to the planter through the sense of smell. When the chenille appears, a very flagrant odour issues from the field, which is not possessed by the worm itself, or the plant separately.

Wherever salt is applied on the listing, at the rate of one pint to the task-row (105 feet), it is confidently believed, that the bug will not appear.

the most common of all the diseases to which cotton is liable. Its tendency is to check or destroy the vegetative powers of the plants. The causes of blast are threefold:-excess of vegetation, corresponding with plethora in animals; exhaustion of vegetation, terminating in a state similar to gangrene; and wetness at the roots. When the first takes place, the cotton is pronounced flaggy' the appearance of the second is denominated 'canker,' of which there are two kinds: in one the plant is stripped of its fruit and foliage, except a few green buds on the top; in the other, the leaves wither-the stalks assume a dark hue, and the pods drop, save those nearly full grown, which become hard and black, though they produce cotton. In relation to the third cause, as long as the roots are saturated with water, the procreative energies of the plants are arrested, and all the fruit previously formed quickly disappear. While the manuring system, where judiciously practised, has almost effectually removed one cause, and the main one, arising from vegetative exhaustion, it has palpably increased the plethoric habits of the plant, and multiplied the number of its diseases, most of which, there are good grounds for believing, is animal. It should, hence, be the paramount duty of the grower, unless an antidote, like salt for instance, be applied, to use sparingly those manures, which furnish a matrix for generating or nourishing the insect brood.

"It has been well said by a judicious observer, that, of all the productions to which labour is applicable, the cotton plant, more particularly the species grown on the Sea Islands, is the most precarious. In its first stage it is attacked by the grub; it is devoured by bugs in the second; and by caterpillars in the third: it is often withered by the wind in its infancy, and by the blight in maturer age; and when the grower, excited by all the causes which hope so kindly presents to his ardent imagination, is about to reap the golden harvest, an equinoctial gale, or a few saturating showers, deprive him at once of the fruits of his labours, and bid him to reassume the toils and vexations of his vocation. And here it may pertinently be added, that when the produce is raised, at an expense to the cultivator, which, perhaps, is not equalled in any other pursuit an expense, too, that is permanent and certain, while the returns are more variable and fluctuating than any other-the selfish and grasping policy of man is oftentimes more destructive than even the anger of Omnipotence.'

"Apart from the suicidal legislation of the federal authorities, our planters have no cause for despondency. Every view of the subject, on the contrary, imperiously invites them to persevere. In confirmation of this assertion, there are two considerations, one of a general and the other of a local character, to which I would briefly invite your notice-the first showing, that better and cheaper cotton can be grown in this country than in any other section of the world; the other, that by a little more attention to the processes that succeed the gathering season, the disparity between the South Carolina planter and his more southern associates, in relation to the money value of their respective crops, would be considerably lessened. And, first, in reference to nearly every part of the globe where cotton is grown for European consumption and manufacture, it is undeniable, that while the production of the raw material in the United States is rapidly extending, in other countries, it is either stationary or diminishing. Secondly, although with regard to the amount of cotton per acre, South Carolina cannot compete with the Gulf states,† yet her planters, in consequence of this apparent misfortune, are enabled to send the wool to market greatly improved in value by a superior mode of handling. One cent more per pound, occasioned by a better style of preparation, taking the crop of the last year as a basis, would yield to the growers over 900,000 dollars.

* Sometimes, on poor high land, assisted with any matter, salt-mud especially, that brings the plant rapidly to maturity, this disease will appear, if a drought be succeeded by heavy rains in August. To prevent this, do not use mud alone, but in connexion with some stimulating aliment. Such lands should not be planted until the last of April.

While the production in the Gulf states has doubled itself for the eighteen years, from 1824 to 1841, inclusive; that of the southern Atlantic states for the same period has remained nearly stationary.

Actual average of the eighteen crops from 1824 to 1841 :