Not long after Mr. Whitney's arrival at the plantation, Mrs. Greene was
entertaining a number of visitors from the surrounding country, several
planters of considerable wealth being among the number, when one of the
guests turned the conversation upon the subject of cotton-raising, by
declaring that he had met with such poor success that he was ready to
abandon the undertaking. His trouble was not, he said, that cotton would
not grow in his land, for it yielded an abundant return, but that the
labor of clearing it from the seed was so enormous that he could not do
more than pay expenses after selling it.
His case was simply one among a thousand. The far Southern States were
admitted by every one to be admirably adapted to the cultivation of
cotton, but, after it was grown and picked, the expense of cleaning it
destroyed nearly all the profits of the transaction. The cleaning
process was performed by hand, and it was as much as an able-bodied
negro could do to clean one pound per day in this manner. Disheartened
by this difficulty, which no one had yet been able to remove, the
planters of the South were seriously contemplating the entire
abandonment of this portion of their industry, since it only involved
them in debt.
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