PLANTATION LIFE AND THE EARLY CLEANING PROCESSES.
After many months of anxious watching and waiting, towards the end of July or early in August, the planter may be seen to be constantly and wistfully looking for the appearance of the bursting bolls of cotton. Daily in the early mornings he is to be seen casting his eyes down the pod-laden rows of cotton plants, to see if he can count a few ripe open bolls as he stands at the head of a row. If this be so, he knows that his harvest is close at hand, and his pickers must be ready at any moment to begin what is certainly the most tedious and difficult work of the plantation, namely, picking the raw cotton from the bursting bolls.
While the planter has been on the lookout in the fields, necessary and important operations have been going on inside in the farm outbuildings. Sacks and baskets which can most expeditiously aid in the removal of the picked cotton from the field to the ginning factory are being got ready. To suit the young and old, tall and small, weak and strong, different sized bags and baskets are required, and after the marking and branding of the same, they are ready for being put into use.
Now the picking of cotton is not at all an easy operation, long continuous bending, a hot sun (for it is a rule scarcely ever broken that cotton must not be plucked unless the sun is shining upon it), a constantly increasing weight round the neck or on the arm, monotonous picking of the cotton from the bolls without bringing away any of the husk or leaf--all tend to make the work of the picker very trying and tiresome. The plantation hands must be early at work, and while the day is very young they are to be seen wending their way, ready to begin when the sun makes its appearance. Often the clothes of the workers are quite wet with the early morning dews. This is specially the case in September and October. By ten o'clock a hot blazing sun streams down upon the pickers as they diligently relieve the heavy-laden bushes of the white fleecy load of cotton. As each picker fills his or her bag, it is quickly emptied into a larger receptacle, and ultimately carried away to the gin house, where it is desirable the cotton should be housed before the night dews come on and consequently damage materially the cotton which the pickers have been careful to pick while the sun was on it.