Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 by Various
page 17 of 313 (05%)
page 17 of 313 (05%)
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cultivation will give an equal crop. Intelligent Northern men have taken
up exhausted plantations upon the uplands of North Carolina, and, by the application of moderate quantities of guano, phosphate of lime, etc., have carried the crop from two hundred up to eight hundred pounds of clean cotton per acre; and for the last three years the writer has been in the habit of selecting the North Carolina guano-grown cotton, in the New York market, where it has been shipped via Wilmington or Norfolk, on account of its good staple, good color, and extra strength. There is nothing in the cultivation of cotton involving harder work than that of corn. In the early stages of its growth it is more tender than corn, and requires more care,--which it does not get, since we find Southern writers deploring that the cut-worm and the louse are charged with many sins which are caused by careless cultivation and the bruises inflicted by the clumsy negro hoes. The soil is very light, and most of the work might be done by the plow and cultivator. Except upon very poor soil there is only one plant allowed to eight and even ten square feet. By the admission of Texas planters themselves, in the accounts of their country which they have written to induce emigration and sell their surplus land, there is very little work to be done during the hottest part of the summer; the cultivation taking place in the spring, and the picking in the fall and winter. Dr. J.S. Wilson, of Columbus, Ga., writing upon the diseases of negroes, says there is no article of clothing so needful to them, and so seldom supplied, as an overcoat. Should some shrewd Yankee, starting South to go into the business of raising cotton, lay in a large supply of flannel shirts, thick Guernsey frocks, and woolen stockings, for his field hands, how many of his neighbors would remind him of Lord Timothy Dexter's noted shipment to the West Indies, and ask him why he did not take some warming-pans; and yet, for his supply of thick, warm clothing he would have the authority |
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