Whatever it may be to the worker, the cotton fields at picking time have become to the world a symbol of Dixie. The benevolent blackness of an old mammy's face, the brightness of her dress, and the perspective of white cotton rows blend in colors dear to the hearts of souvenir buyers. It has become the sentimental postal card picture of the South. It is a symbol in the sense that the planta tion was a symbol. In far-away lands men's hearts have been known to lift with joy at the sight, as they do at the sound of Dixie. It is noteworthy that these postal cards do not picture white women and children as pick ing the cotton. Cotton picking is not all festival. The sun is warm, and the Negroes laugh and sing, but Negroes have been given the tradition of laughing and singing at notably hard lives. Henry W. Grady pointed out long ago that the Negro spent his life with cotton and yet he had developed no folklore and no songs around the plant. Since then the Negro has sung of Mr. Boll Weevil a-sittin' everywhere. One wonders after all if the postal card picture is not a symbol, the symbol of a feudal order and of the domination of a section and a race by a plant.
On the rented farms the tenants and croppers must pick their own crop or pay the labor bill. Consequently, they and the small owners draft their wives and children. All go to the fields early and work late, always ten hours, and often twelve a day. Each picker wears a long sack which fastens over the shoulder by a cord and drags be hind him on the ground. With bending back and both hands flying from boll to boll, the picker takes one row or two at a time. As his hand becomes filled with cotton he thrusts it into the mouth of the sack behind him. When he is working for wages, the picker carries the filled sack to the weigher, who hoists it on a steelyard and notes the result in his book. The cotton is poured into an un hitched wagon with high sideboards and tramped down. If damp with the morning dew it is emptied on a wagon sheet on the ground to dry before weighing. On the large plantation the fibre is stored after each day's work in the little cotton houses which dot the landscape. The white tenants and small owners are likely to dump the cotton on their small front porches until they are ready to haul it to the gin. A wagon load of seed cotton, "tramped down" between the high sideboards, makes a bale of lint.
The haul to the gin is not likely to be long. It is esti mated that the time required to haul the crop to gin and to market is four hours for the farmer and eight hours of mule labor per acre." In the real Cotton Belt there is a gin in every country town and at many country cross roads. The farmers draw their wagons up in a line and wait their turn to drive under the suction pipe. During
the ginning season a great amount of time is spent wait ing on the gin, but for the busy farmer it is a time for sociability and gossip with his neighbors. When his turn comes the farmer drives under the shed and helps to move the flexible suction pipe about over the loose cotton. In a short time the fleece is sucked up. If he wants his seed back, he drives around to a chute where it is poured into the wagon. Very likely, however, he will sell the seed to the ginner at current market prices. The bale is delivered to the farmer at a cost ranging from $3.00 to $4.00 for ginning, bagging, and ties. On the plantation and rented farms tenants and landlords each pay for ginning their share of the cotton.
How the farmer sells his cotton depends on his tenure status. Every southern town, large or small, has its quota of cotton buyers. The different types of buyers found are cotton factors, supply merchants, landlords, street buyers, and buyers for cotton firms. "General Merchan dise and Cotton Buyer" is written on the signs of many small commercial gentry of the Cotton Belt. The tenant either lets the landlord sell his cotton or may sell to him direct at current spot prices. The creditor may deliver his cotton to the supply merchant and receive the bal ance after paying his debts. The farm owner has a wider range of choice among the local buyers. The towns are scenes of hectic activity during the picking season. Farm ers drive into town with wagons piled high with cotton bales. Each buyer mounts the wagon hub, takes a slash at the bagging, and tears out a generous handful of sample. When sampled by all prospective buyers, the bales present a mottled and a gapping appearance. Many ignorant farmers believe that buyers make a great deal of money by selling all their samples. If the first bids offered are not satisfactory, the farmer may take a sample and hunt up a merchant, who he thinks will pay a better price. If unsuccessful he may take the cotton home and hold it. Cotton is also deposited in warehouses, the staple certified, and warehouse receipts issued. These receipts are negotiable and can be used as security for loans up to about 80 per cent of the market value of the cotton.
The intervals between pickings over the field can be put to a good use by the cotton grower. "Corn pulling" time occurs in early November and takes almost a day per acre of the farmer's time. More arduous is fodder pull ing, distasteful because of the stinging sensation the fuzz gives the sweating laborer on face, arms, and neck. This operation also requires about a day to the acre.