permission to go wherever we wished. This was a plantation of fourteen hundred acres, one thousand of which were planted to cotton each year. The place had been in the possession of the same family for generations, and the owners had been men who believed that cotton was king and always would be. They planted only cotton, and bought the corn, bacon, and food supplies required for the people living upon the place. This was what was known as the "all cotton" system of planting. Few planters follow it now. By degrees methods have changed. The planter puts less ground into cotton, but often raises a lafger crop on the smaller area because it is better cultivated. In addition he raises food crops and cattle. He tries to "live at home," and makes cotton his surplus or "money" crop. Many big plantations are cut up now and rented in small plots. These are known as "one-mule," "twomule," "four-mule" farms, according to the number of animals required to cultivate them. One mule can cultivate thirty acres of land. The rent is usually paid in cotton-one-fourth or one-fifth of the crop. A bale of cotton to a mule is a common basis of rental. The owner of the land pays the taxes and furnishes a house such as it is-on the land. The tenant also has the privilege of cutting firewood on the place.

We drove out on to the plantation. Acres of ground covered with the dead, dry stalks of last year's crop stretched on every side. I learned then that cottonplants are not like milkweeds. Although an annual, growing from seed planted each spring, and killed by the fall frosts, the cotton-stalk grows to be hard and woody. Cattle eat the leaves, branches, and husks readily, but stop at the stalks. In the. bark of these stalks is a fiber not unlike hemp, which may become a valuable by product when machinery is invented for handling it profitably. The plant is pyramidal in shape, its largest branches nearest the ground. The "boll" is short and five-sided, instead of being canoe-shaped, like the seed-pod of the milkweed; and where the milkweed seeds and floss float cleanly away from the plant soon after the pod opens, the cotton clings to the boll for weeks. In fact, in February, months after the picking had been completed, white shreds fluttered in the wind

from stalks all over the fields through which we drove. These were the "strippings" left by careless pickers. If cotton had been high in price, it would have paid to have gleaned the fields for them; as it was low, they would not pay for the cost of gathering.

The plantation which we visited had its own "gin" on the place. Near this was a pile containing hundreds of bushels of cottonseed heaped up to "heat," that the germs in the seeds might be killed before the mass was used to fertilize the ground for the next year's crop. The question whether it is more profitable to use the seed in this way or sell it and buy fertilizer depends largely upon how near a plantation is to a cottonseed-oil mill and to the railroad station from which the fertilizer must be drawn.

On account of the low price of cotton that year, one hundred and fifty bales of the crop raised the year before lay on the ground near the gin-house, waiting for higher prices. A bale of cotton is expected to weigh five hundred pounds. As prices were then, the bales were worth about $30 each. In 1900 cotton sold up to ten cents a pound and over, the highest figure it had touched for years. At the time I write, June, 1901, it is back down to seven cents and a fraction. The low prices which prevailed for several years were not an unmixed evil, since they influenced many planters to begin raising food crops as well as cotton. Last year's high prices have caused an increased acreage to be planted this year. Whether the result will be an overproduction that will bring prices down again to an unprofitable figure remains to be seen. The Hon. Charles W. Dabney, of Tennessee, who is an authority on all questions pertaining to cotton culture, gives the average cost of making a pound of cotton at 5.27 cents. The crop in the United States each year for the last three years has been over ten million bales, worth the enormous sum of from $300,000,000 to $400,000,000. The crop of 1899 was over eleven million bales. Although cotton probably can be grown with profit in only ten of the United States, the value of the annual crop is exceeded only by corn, which is raised in every one of the States, and, occasionally, by wheat.

In 1793 the yield of cotton in this country was little more than a thousand

The most striking fact in connection with the cotton industry now is the great number of mills which have been built in the Southern States during the last few years. The five million or more spindles whirling in these mills, though, have not by any means driven out of use the spinningwheels and hand-looms on which the clothes of many of the country people have been made for generations. In 1900 America, for the first time, consumed more cotton than any other country in the world, displacing England, which for one hundred and fifty years had enjoyed this distinction.

Practically all cultivation of cotton in the United States is limited by climatic conditions to the country south of the parallel of thirty-seven degrees. The cotton-plant requires five to seven months in which to develop. A frost does not hurt the cotton which has ripened, and picking is often delayed until into the winter, but the first frost checks all the buds and green bolls so that they will not develop. The cotton-plant thrives best in a hot, moist atmosphere. While drought causes a stunted plant, too much rain stimulates an overgrowth of stalk and branches, with few bolls.

The cotton-plant belongs to the mallow family. The scientific name of the genus is Gossypium. Any one who has seen mallows growing in an old-fashioned garden, and remembers the angular buds and seed-pods, will understand why the growing cotton-bolls are sometimes spoken of as "squares." The plant varies greatly in size, according to variety and the richness of the soil. Starved plants not more than a foot high will bear a boll or two of fiber. Plants on moderately good soil grow from four to five feet high. On very rich soil a man on horseback is sometimes hidden as he rides through the field.

The leaves of the cotton-plant are lobed, something like a maple leaf. They grow alternately on the stalk. Most people who know nothing about the cultivation of the cotton-plant think that cotton is merely cotton. Such will be surprised to learn that a recent publication of the Department of Agriculture enumerates one hundred and thirty varieties sufficiently distinct to be identified and named. These are "planters' varieties. A botanist would not recognize so many. Some authorities have tried to reduce all varieties to three

the "white-seeded," "black-seeded," and "yellow-linted." Sea Island is the most famous and highest-priced variety, but it can hardly ever be grown profitably more than fifty miles away from the Atlantic coast. This is a native of the West Indies, and has a fine and very long staple. It is a matter of history that this cotton once sold as high as two dollars a pound. This was not, as might be thought, in war times, but as long ago as 1828. In 1864 middling-grade upland cotton sold in New York for $1.89 a pound, although three years before it had sold as low as ten cents. I do not find any quotations of Sea Island for the year 1864. Many varieties bear the name of the planter who discovered and developed them. Such are the Truitt, a wellknown Georgia variety, and the Peterkin, originated in South Carolina.

The details of cotton cultivation vary in different places according to conditions of soil and climate and the variety cultivated. The plowing of the ground usually begins in February, and the planting extends from March 1 to June 10. Planting at the latter date, though, is only

in ground on which some other crop, like oats, has been harvested; and a crop of cotton will not be made after this date unless the season is particularly favorable. The cotton-rows are commonly laid out four feet apart. Various machines for planting the seed have been invented, but none are so satisfactory as a man's hand. Unless the seed is a rare and expensive variety, it is tossed broadcast into the drill. Under favorable conditions the plants appear above ground within ten days after the seed is put in, but in a dry year they may lie in the earth for weeks and still grow when rain comes. After the plants have come up and are well started they are chopped" with a stout hoe to a "stand." This means that the extra seedlings are cut out, leaving vigorous single plants from eight to eighteen inches apart. A plow is run between the rows at frequent intervals until August, to keep the weeds down. The first blossoms appear when the plants are about fifteen inches high, which would be from the middle of May to the middle of June, according to latitude. The first bolls of the cotton-plant open about a month

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later, and picking begins about a month after that time.

Cotton is grown with some degree of success in all kinds of soil, but loam is reckoned the best. In Louisiana there is a famous soil called "buckshot," which is said to be better adapted to cotton than any other in this country. The name is given to it because when cultivated it breaks into a loose mass of tilth suggestive of fine-grained shot. Two bales of cotton to an acre may be raised on this soil. Cotton suffers from various diseases, to some of which have been given most singular names, such as "sore shin," "damping," and "frenching." Insects also injure it. Formerly the average

damage done each year by the cotton armyworm was estimated at fifteen millions of dollars, but poisoning with Paris green has largely done away with this pest now.

The picking of cotton is the most tedious and expensive of all the processes connected with the culture. Various machines have been invented for picking cotton, but picking by hand continues to be the most satisfactory method. The picking of one year's average crop in this country is estimated to cost not less than sixty millions of dollars. From thirty to fifty cents a hundredweight is the price paid for picking, and men, women, and children do the work. The picker wears a bag slung around his or her neck, into