Carl and the Cotton Gin

eave here, Frederick?" his sister inquired as

e touch there for a cargo

gathered, won't you, Unc

will be done before I arrive. However, I shall not mind that fo

in the South, doesn

a mild shake of his head. "On the contrary the cotton belt of the Unit

bigger and plant more

. This, you see, leaves a rather narrow zone that answers its demands in the way of temperature and soil. For the kind of soil cotton likes has to be considered also. If the land is too sandy the moisture will soon dry up and the plants shrivel; or if there i

y spot on earth would fill

ouri, Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma all contrive to answer the requirements to a greater or less degree. These States boast soils that are blends of clay, sand, and loam in the desired p

ed for him when he has these two impo

ore cotton growers realized this, not much attention was paid to these laws and in consequence the crop of many a southern plantation suffered. Now cotton-raising is done far more scientifically. The old stalks are gathered and destroyed; the land

fore they come up?

owed to grow. States farther south get at the task earlier. After the thinning process is over the plants are hilled up like potatoes and the spaces between the rows, where the last season's crop previously grew, is plowed to keep the soil open

happens?"

nts with loose earth. Often there are four or five haulings. By July the plants have grown sufficiently to show which one in each hill is to be the most thrifty and this one is left to grow while the other shoots

to grow before it is read

m the end of August until into November or December. It is a long-drawn-out, tedious, monotonous task. Whole families join in the harvesting for since there is always some low and some tall cotton (some annual and some perennial varieties) the children can share with their elders in the work and thus

dience

in India. Wherever work must be done by hand and labor is cheap and plentiful, human beings come to be classed to a great extent as machines. Plantation owners become so interested in the money they are to make th

eeds had to be picked o

ive away from the moist ocean climate. Hence on inland plantations a different and more vigorous variety of plant (one having green seeds and short staples) was propagated. This kind was known as Upland cotton. It was a troublesome product for the planters, I assure you, fo

tton gin, didn't th

ingers; and when I tell you that it often took an entire day to get out of a three-pound batch

k it would have paid anybody t

nd misery that went into the cotton-growing of those slavery days. After working for a long stretch of hours in the blazing sun the negroes came in at night worn out. But were they allowed to rest?

ee

esult a great deal of cruelty was practiced. Had the primitive method of picking cotton by hand continued it is probable that slavery might have died a natural death without recourse to war, for many of the Southerners were reaching a point where the returns from cotton and tobacco were not sufficient to feed the army of slaves that swarmed over the plantations. To use a common phrase the slaves were eating their heads off. It was just at this junct

n the very nick of time,

re. No mechanical device could take their place. Cotton must be planted, cultivated, and harvested by hand and the larger the cotton fields became, the harder the slaves were worked. The cotton crop became

of the question before," Mrs.

" rejoi

fields and their prosperity was not dependent on the negroes. But to let the slaves go meant ruin for the South. It was not alone, you see, that their owners wished the profit derived from buying and selling them; they needed them to work. Never had the South had such

an insta

e only honorable thing to do was to bring it to an end in this country. But that is another story altogether. What we are talking about now is the cotton itself

's cloth-making industry as Eli Whitney's cotton gin had done in the South. In other words the hand loom had been supplanted by the more modern device of the steam-driven spinning mill. This meant that in future cloth would no longer be made i

verybody to raising cotto

of the South leaped forward by bounds. The year preceding Eli Whitney's invention the United States exported less than one hundred and forty thousand bales

d Carl. "That was som

agreed h

ort now, Uncle Fred

aptain Dillingham. "Of this about ninety per cent. is Upland cotton, the green seeds of which have to be tak

raised so much c

the slaves. With cotton so much in demand the prices of slaves had greatly increased. The planters had untold wealth almost within their grasp.

ething on its side, did

ble to emphasize only the cruelty of slavery and are often unable to understand how enlighte

nod

s wrong from start to finish. Nevertheless it does explain why some of our people felt the freeing of t

d not allow them to secede that the war

o make a nation. North and South were all beloved children of one land, and Abraham Lincoln, like the father of a big family, was not going to let any of the household break away from the organization to which it belonged. It meant a struggle to do the two things necessary-free the sl

Carl, Mary, and Tim in chorus, as they

ning," continued Tim, "but I n

f their part of this great land. If you do this you will learn to honor both sides alike, each of which fought so devotedly for the cause he cherished. And now that the war is over the entire country has the South to thank for one of its g