THE sceptre of King Cotton is wrested from him! The royal prerogative was sacrificed through the reckless passion and insane folly of his friends.  Yet it is right:  he never was entitled to the distinction.  First useful, then influential, then powerful, he became inflated with insufferable vanity, and odious with intolerable arrogance. Profiting by the lesson, reduced to his natural position, he may again become useful, perhaps travel north a little, and act in a circle less circumscribed by prejudice and that “vaulting ambition” that so often overleaps itself.

The plant producing the downy fibre attached to its seeds, which has recently come into use so nearly universal for the various purposes of clothing, is of the same family as the common mallow; botanically considered, of the order malvacea, of the genus gossypium, of which the species, as modified by cultivation, are somewhat uncertain in their classification, the principal being herbaceum, (the green-seed upland of the southern States,) hirsutum, (the shrub cotton,) and arboreum, (tree cotton.) The cotton of Peru and South America generally is the hirsutum, growing bushy and stout, and living several years in temperate climates destitute of frost. The tree variety is from fifteen to twenty feet in height, and is found in the East Indies, growing wild, and in South America, the staple long, strong, silky, and yellowish. There is so much variety, in different climates and latitudes, in the size and habit of the plant, the color of the flower and of the seed, the quality of the fibre, and other points of difference, that confusion arises in the classifications of botanists in different quarters of the globe.

Much the larger proportion of cotton grown is produced in this country.  Seven-eighths of the entire product of the world, it has been estimated, has been reached by our increased production. The East Indies occupy the next place, followed by South America, (Brazil mainly,) the West Indies, and Africa.

It has been used for the manufacture of cloth more than two thousand years, being first known in India, then introduced into Greece and the countries of the Mediterranean. It is now found in all tropical latitudes, and adjacent temperate localities in the United States south of 35°; in the West Indies; in South America down to Peru; in the Pacific isles; in Australia, Japan, India, and China, and in nearly all explored portions of Africa.

The cotton plant is a child of the sun, flourishing under ardent skies, growing with superior luxuriance in dry seasons, and withering under the influence of a soaking subsoil and long-continued storms. In latitude 30° to 32° in this country, upon the proper soils, it luxuriates in its greatest vigor. It delights not in an arid, brazen sky, but in an unobscured sun by day and copious dews at night—abundant moisture with continuous sunlight in its season.

It is such a climate that suits cotton, and not that the plant is of a salamander species, needing no moisture. It is on this account, quite as much as the quality of the soil, that the best alluvium of the Mississippi, bathed in an atmosphere filled with moisture, without clouds to obscure the sunlight, is so productive of cotton.

North Carolina, a poor cotton region, is the northern limit of profitable culture, at former prices, on the Atlantic coast. The bottom lands of Tennessee, and the district between the Tennessee and Mississippi, comprise the boundaries in that direction. When the fibre sells at sixty cents to one dollar per pound, there is an inducement to encounter, greater climatic risks, and accept smaller and more uncertain returns. It is, therefore, planted, at the present time, to a considerable extent, in more northern latitudes, in soils deemed most suitable—in Kentucky, in Missouri, somewhat largely in Kansas, in southern Illinois and Indiana, on the eastern shore of Maryland, and in southern Delaware. There is a possibility of ripening, under favorable circumstances, up to 40° north latitude, with success sufficient to tempt experiment when the fibre approaches its present commercial figure.

This statement shows the difference in soil, and the effects of wasteful culture in the older States; but it shows most conspicuously, also, the influence of climate, especially in the figures for South Carolina and Tennessee.

The selection of a proper soil is a vital consideration in cotton culture—a consideration that must not be ignored in the present attempt to extend the bounds of its production. While the soil, in its quality and condition, should be good, it need not necessarily be very rich. either in mineral or organic elements. Som- of the richest soils (other conditions being unfavorable) produce only medium crops. A predominant ingredient of the best is silex, and yet a soil of coarse sand, weak in elements of the stalk, seed, and fibre, is the poorest of cotton soils. Few cotton soils have less than eighty per cent. of silex, and many have ninety, a fine specimen from a Georgia sea island plantation having ninety-two. But the silex should be so fine as to seem destitute of grit.

It is thought by many that those prairies composed mainly of decayed vegetation, which dry out with a few days sun, are just the places for cotton.  There could scarcely be worse.  The Mississippi bottoms: are, indeed, among the best cotton lands in the world; but they are composed largely of sand, fine as the silt of the ocean’s bed, retentive of moisture, and overspread with an atmosphere dripping with dews at night.

It will readily be seen that cotton is not a very exhaustive crop, when it is remembered that the stalk and leaves are never taken from the field; that the seed is returned to it, and only three hundred pounds of fibre (much more than the average) are taken from an acre. As the ash is only one and a half per cent., but four and a half pounds are abstracted from the soil.  According to Johnston, 25 bushels of wheat abstract 17.65 pounds of mineral matter; 38 bushels of barley, 46.98 pounds; 50 bushels oats, 58.05 pounds; while potatoes average more than 150 pounds; and beets, with their leaves, three times as much to the acre. Cotton is comparatively exhausting as a crop when the seed is not returned to the soil. The seed constitutes fully sixty per cent. of the weight of unginned or “seed cotton,” and contains, according to Mallet, twice as much potash (which is the principal mineral ingredient) as the fibre.  A very large proportion of the potash in seed cotton is thus contained in the seed, and can be returned to the soil.

The proper degree of moisture necessary is a question upon which planters differ, but the difference is mainly resultant from different circumstances.  One has a quick, thirsting soil; he thinks cotton needs a great deal of water. Another has a tenacious clay, with a subsoil always saturated with water; he affirms strenuously that cotton requires little or no rain. Dry seasons have been observed to be those of large cotton crops; yet very light, sandy soils, under continued drought, produce little, while stiffer alluvion and prairie do well. These facts, apparently contradictory; have confused the ideas of superficial thinkers; some asserting that the cotton plant needs large supplies of moisture, others declaring that it does not. The truth is, it does need constant moisture, and at the same time perfect drainage and daily sunlight. It delights in a soil that can seize, hold, and appropriate the heavy dews of the cotton latitude, and obviate any urgent necessity for the showers of heaven.  A soil not peculiarly retentive of moisture, otherwise rich, needs frequent showers to perfect the plant; but a clay subsoil, saturated with long continued rains, is destructive of the planter’s hopes. Difference in soil, therefore, fully accounts for these superficial opinions, se widely differing. “Not rain, but moisture, is essential.”

Cotton has a long tap root, two or three feet in length, in good soil, sometimes four or five, with a mass of fibrous side roots. It thus finds moisture, and diffuses freshness through the plant, which smiles a welcome to the grateful beverage. The natural habitat of cotton is the home of moisture-loving plants, such as the dwarf palmetto and Spanish moss. On such lands the fibre is longer and heavier than on dry, sandy soils.

The very perfection of cotton soil may be said to be the cane-brakes of Central Alabama and the rotten limestone region of Mississippi—both essentially the same, and both underlaid by a soft, yellowish-white limestone of the tenacity of dense chalk, containing about seventy-six per cent. of carbonate of lime; yet the superincumbent soil contains only a minute proportion of lime, with potash, soda, and magnesia.

This soil is remarkable for the fine state of comminution in which it is found.  Its minuteness of subdivision is extraordinary—with no stones or gravel, and few particles larger than one-fortieth of an inch in diameter, giving an enormous surface of these atoms in proportion to mass or quantity. It is so fine as almost to seem impalpable dust when dry; remains long in solution without deposition; contains, moderately dry, one-third weight of water, and nearly one-sixth when air-dried; in the heats of summer it becomes hard, and in roads polishes with friction, while in the rainy season it is a stiff, plastic mud; its cohesion is twice as great as that f common clays or pine-woods sandy loam; its adhesive power is in still greater excess; it attains a higher temperature and cools more slowly than other soils; water percolates through it less rapidly; its capillary power acts more slowly, but with longer duration, bringing water from greater depths and raising a given quantity to a higher altitude; absorbs aqueous vapor more tardily, but one hundred per cent. more in quantity than clay or light sand; and has an astonishing power of absorbing ammonia, condensing more than fifty times its volume of ammoniacal gas. Such are the rotten limestone soils, in so fine and uniform division, that the irregular rains of the season are better held and appropriated than in any other. These facts are patent to all who have seen the soil and its produce, and long known, from personal observation, of the writer, but have been made singularly conspicuous by recent experiments of Dr. Mallet, of Alabama, in comparison with other cotton soils.  This brief description, could it be extended, might glow in a stronger light, with the aid of the results of these experiments, in their illustrated details; as it is it will aid in the work of selecting a suitable northern soil for experiments in cotton growing.

1. The region underlaid by rocks of the cretaceous system in Georgia Alabama, and Mississippi—the soft, argillaceous limestone.
2. The sea island cotton belt, very narrow, lying along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and part of Florida, and overlying tertiary deposits. The favorite soil of this peculiar product looks like a mixture of dark gray sand and charcoal dust—a sort of lignite or peaty powder, intermixed with shells, wood, twigs, and leaves. The following is an analysis of a sample:

   Silica	92.040
   Alumina	1.500
   Lime	280
   Magnesia	370
   Potash	1.000
   Soda	500
   Peroxide iron and oxide magnesia	1.500
   Vegetable matter	2.400

   With traces of carbonic, phosphoric, humic, and other acids.
3. Sandy soils underlaid by metamorphic rocks, sandstones, and chertz limestones.
4. Rich, alluvial bottom lands.

These brief suggestions may serve as a guide in the selection of lands for cotton-growing. Those prairie soils that are very light, and dry readily on the surface, or that are deficient in under drainage, or are composed mainly of decayed vegetable organisms, are not to be selected. If deeply drained, and composed of deposits of drifting sand, with requisite quantities of clay, potash, iron, and manganese oxides, a little lime, and a small percentage of vegetable matter, alluvial prairie will do very well.

Too much vegetable matter will cause a vigorous growth of stalk and leaves, and a meagre amount of fibre, or none at all, should frosts come early in the autumn. Those prairies, go often seen in the west, black with several feet in depth of half decomposed vegetation, if crude, wet, and sour, will not even grow stalk and leaves; if warm. and well suited to the culture of corn, it may grow plants of prodigious size, but no cotton.

In a flooded subsoil the tap-root will not penetrate, the plant becomes sickly, the bolls refuse to open, and scab and rot, and destructive insects make their appearance, and join in crushing every hope of a crop, or even a vestige of one.

In fine, select a soil prominently silicious and aluminous, with a little organic and mineral matter, such as is needed by the plant for food, all of great uniformity and in minute division. The best is a dark-colored, warm, finely-comminuted upland, or a second bottom, in some cases, with mineral constituents in proper proportion.

After the selection of a soil deemed most suitable, its proper preparation is even a more vital consideration in northern than in more favorable latitudes.  A deficiency in minuteness of mechanical subdivision of particles may be remedied in part by plough and hoe.

Lands should be deeply and thoroughly ploughed long enough before planting to allow the spring rains to settle the soil. If not ploughed previously, particular pains should be taken to secure uniform and deep pulverization. If rough and full of clods, the harrow should follow the plough.

The usual practice among successful cultivators is to form beds with the turning plough, as foundations for the ridges, turning furrows both ways toward the centres.

Ridge planting is almost universally practiced; yet the custom of planting in hills, as with corn, has obtained in certain districts in Virginia and lower Maryland, and may be preferable in otherwise suitable lands that are inclined to be too moist and cold, giving a better exposure of the fibrous side roots to the action of the sun. An increased elevation given to the ridge has essentially the same effect.

If land has been fallow, or in sod, it should first be thoroughly broken up with a heavy plough, and then bedded with a smaller one, harrowing after the first ploughing. This not only pulverizes thoroughly, but leaves grass and weeds far beneath the surface.  It will not do to slight the work at this stage; the success of the crop depends upon its character. If done well, half the battle of the season is over.

When the ridge is ready to open for seeding, great care should be taken to get a perfectly straight furrow, to facilitate “scraping out” superfluous cotton and grass. A very light and narrow plough should be used, making a furrow not exceeding an inch in depth. Unless the soil is very light and dry, the seed should not be covered half an inch.  A wooden instrument for making the seed bed is frequently used to advantage instead of a plough.

An exercise of common inventive ingenuity would construct a machine for opening, dropping seed, and covering, all at the same operation.

The distance between ridges and between the plants must depend upon the probable size of the plants, which varies from eighteen inches fo half as many feet in height. The largest yield is secured by so graduating the distance that the plants will cover the ground and slightly interlock their branches. In good soils the ridges should be four feet apart, and the plants fifteen inches; in lighter, three and a half, and twelve inches; in very rich lands the ridges might be four and a half feet, and the plants fifteen to eighteen inches. This direction is for good cotton soils. If a stinted growth only is expected, plants may be set nearer; some of our amateur planters think six inches will do, but counsels so extreme should not be heeded.

Planting in the north should commence as early as is compatible with the safety of the plant, which is very tender at first, but when well rooted is hardy as corn. Seed should be used at the rate of thirty pounds per acre when seed is abundant. A less quantity may do if the distance between the plants is regulated by a dibble, and three or four seeds dropped in each spot so marked, care being taken not to cover too deep.

It has been usual in the south to put in half a dozen bushels of seed per acre, partly to secure a “stand,” and partly to manure the crop. There is a disadvantage in sowing so thick. The plants are thus crowded, as in a hot bed, and are tender and puny. This drawback, with the present scarcity of seed, makes such a course very undesirable in northern latitudes.

The seed should be soaked in a brine made by soaking stable manure in salt and water, and dried with lime, plaster, or ashes. It is more necessary to secure early germination and a vigorous first growth, where the season is short, than in the south.

The plant will make its appearance in about ten days after planting, if the weather is favorable. With too early planting, a cold storm succeeding, there is danger that the seed will rot. It should be put in as soon after corn as possible, looking only at the danger from frost and from failure in germination.

As soon as the third leaf appears the process of “scraping” commences, which consists of clearing the ridge, with hoes, of superfluous plants and all weeds and grass; after which narrow ploughs, known as “bull-tongue” ploughs, turn a little loose earth around the plant, and cover up any grass not totally destroyed by the hoes. If the surface is very rough, (as it will not be with sufficient ploughing and harrowing,) the hoes follow, instead of precede the ploughs, to unearth those plants that may be partially covered. Some experimenters have reported that with them hoes are not necessary. That may be if their lands can be kept perfectly clean with ploughing, which must be done with such skill and care as never to touch the plants or cover them with earth.  But if they depend on such culture as corn endures, producing weeds breast high in tangled masses, and an abundant crop of corn besides, their disappointment will be bitter—and deserved.

The negroes of the cotton States often acquire great skill in these operations, running ploughs within two inches of the stalks, and striking down weeds within half an inch with their hoes, very rarely touching even a leaf of cotton.

Subsequent ploughing, alternating with hoeing, (not to hill up, but to keep down the weeds,) usually occurs once in twenty days. For higher latitudes the soil should be worked once in two weeks, or, better still, every ten days, in the early part of the season, to induce rapid growth and early maturity; and the crop should be “laid by” very early, if clean of weeds. The object of working often, however, is quite as much to destroy the grass as to stir the soil, although light surface culture facilitates rapid growth.

There is danger, in deep ploughing, of injuring the roots. It should, therefore, be avoided, except in the middles of the rows, in wet seasons, when it is necessary to bury and more effectually to kill the grass. The slovenly, dilatory planter of cotton is liable to be, in technical parlance, “in the grass,” a condition securing the commiseration of more industrious neighbors, and awaking his own apprehensions for the safety and profit of the crop. Nothing is more intolerant than King Cotton of the least encroachment upon his domain.  Nothing, as a field crop, demands a cleaner culture.

A great variety of implements is used for this culture, according to differing circumstances of soil and season, and, possibly, the whims of planters. Among them are “sweeps,” “shovel” ploughs, occasionally turning ploughs, cultivators, and harrows.

It requires four months for cotton to attain its growth under the most favorable conditions. It is usually planted about the 1st of April in the Gulf States, or from March 20 to April 10, blooms about the 1st of June, and the first bolls open about the 15th of August, when the first picking commences as soon as fifty pounds per hand can be gathered daily.

The blooms come out in the morning, are developed fully by noon, when they are a pure white. Soon after meridian they begin to exhibit reddish streaks, and the next morning are a clear pink.  They fall off by noon of the second day. The sea island variety is yellow at first.

If weeds and grass abound, late ploughing is of doubtful utility. An early “laying by" of the crop is probably more important in the north, than in the Gulf States, to stop the growth of the plant and develop the bolls, which continue to form until the time of frost. In the most favorable localities the frost will always kill many immature or partly developed bolls.

To secure the development and maturity of the fibre, it is also recommended to top the plant as soon as ploughing is over, and it has attained its growth.

The experiment in cotton-growing, in 1862, north of its accustomed limits, was important, rather as an indication of possible future accomplishments, than on account of the cotton actually produced, which was in small quantities, of short staple, and much of it immature. It was planted in more southern localities, wherever the limited facilities for seed could be made available, with reference to a crop; it was also planted, where crops could never be expected, in small patches and in gardens, with little knowledge of its proper culture, and generally neglected. "Out of curiosity it was grown thus from Maine to Minnesota, with utter disregard of latitude, soil, or time of planting.

The Tennessee specimen of seed distributed was best suited to the experiment. The Georgia seed flourished generally, but required quite too long a season to perfect it.  The Chinese gave no satisfaction, most of it failing to germinate.

Some seed of the Peru cotton, received through the State Department and our minister to England, was distributed with the rest.  This is a variety of Gossypium hirsutum, or shrub cotton, living as a perennial (for six or eight years) in a climate destitute of frost. It is a sort of cousin of the sea island variety, and has the same yellowish color, but is no more suited to our rough, northern climate than the banana or orange. It was planted, came up, throve famously, but showed in no instance cither boll or flower. It excited great expectations by its vigorous growth, only to disappoint them by its perennial habit. The uniform report is in harmony with the following: “The Peru cotton came up and grew vigorously till frost. It produced an exceedingly large and luxuriant stalk and branches, and that was all; it neither bolled nor bloomed, for the simple reason that it had not time.”

In Kansas and Southern Illinois some attempts at field culture were made, with a success proportioned to a knowledge of the proper soil and culture and faithfulness and industry in conducting the experiment. When entered into by persons acquainted with the conditions of success, it was fairly proven that enormous profits may be the reward of him who wins it, and that the goal may be easily reached.  "With a proper location and soil, a suitable preparation, followed by intelligent and persistent labor in cultivation, the success achieved was gratifying, even flattering, giving assurances that at present prices cotton- growing is the most lucrative business in which the agriculturist can engage.

Not a word of encouragement, as was to be expected, is given by correspondents north of the latitude of 40°. . It is useless to attempt to force nature in the production of a field crop. A few puny, half-grown bolls are seized by the frost, and, in the agony of dissolution, their shrivelled substance opens and discloses a meagre quantity of immature fibre. From Champaign county, Illinois, through which the 40th parallel runs, it is reported that up to October 20, the date of the first frost, no bolls were open, and yet a sufficient quantity came out after frost to pay the expense of cultivation.

It was a very common mistake to plant in the richest prairies, by which large stalks and vigorous foliage were produced in abundance. In such cases it was no disappointment to learn that the “heavy rains of September and October appeared to give the crop an unusual growth of foliage without maturing it.”

A greater success was obtained in Kansas than elsewhere. which has led to extensive planting this season. The facts range even there from decided success to positive failure.

At a meeting in Lyons county, in Kansas, called to consider the cotton question, at which many facts were elicited and former experiments canvassed, the opinion was concurred in that 1,500 pounds of unginned cotton could easily be grown to the acre. Instances are produced in which a higher rate of yield has been obtained. At Cresco, Anderson county, a product of 300 pounds of clean cotton per acre was secured at an expense of twenty-five dollars per acre.

Domestic manufactures of home-grown cotton are already exhibited in Kansas; her merchants have commenced the purchase and shipment of the raw product, and quite a furor for its culture and manufacture has arisen.

From Clay county, Indiana, it is reported that the plants did not mature in consequence of a wet season. As the experiment was made on “flat land,” and as other correspondents attributed failure to a dry season, there is a reasonable suspicion that the subsoil was flooded and the tap-root drowned out, especially as the writer acknowledges that years ago he had “seen beautiful fields of cotton on the sandy prairie.”

A manufacturer in Wilmington, Delaware, with some seed from Southern Virginia, started his plants in a hot bed, and set them out about the middle of May in a poor clay loam. They grew to the height of five feet, producing good, strong fibre, “quite as good cotton as the manufacturers in these parts commonly use.”

Thirty years ago cotton was grown in the Wabash valley, and throughout Southern Indiana, to such extent that cotton gins were demanded and provided, at first of a rude construction, consisting simply of smooth wooden rollers, afterwards more pretentious in style and effective in action.

Cotton has been grown in Missouri, to a limited extent, for several years past, with ordinary cultivation and with good success, while prices were less than one-fourth the present figures.  W. H. Horner, writing upon cotton-growing in this State, estimates the average yield, with common culture, at 1,500 pounds seed cotton per acre. One hand will work ten acres in cotton and five in corn, producing 15,000 pounds seed cotton and 250 bushels of corn, costing $210, including cotton-picking; and one hand will work twenty acres in corn, producing 1,000 bushels, at a cost of $190. The corn, at twenty-five cents per bushel, produces $250, and a profit of $90 in one case; in the other, the net profit, at present prices, is more than ten-fold.

The planting in Missouri is done near the last of April, and blossoms are produced by the last of June. Care is taken not to stimulate the growth of the plant in the latter part of the season, as it prevents the formation and development of bolls.

On the eastern shore of Maryland, where cotton was produced long before the war of the revolution, the old wheat and tobacco fields promise this year to be white with cotton. A considerable breadth has been seeded, and will be cultivated with something of skill and assiduity. The experiment, scarcely inaugurated last year, will have a much fairer and more decisive trial in the present. May it prove successful, and show that most improbable things are quite possible to skill and labor!

The recent increase in the cotton product of the world has been astonishing.  Little was exported or produced in the United States prior to 1795.  It is said that, in 1784, an American vessel, having seventy-one bags of cotton on board, was seized at Liverpool, on the plea that so large an amount of cotton could not have been produced in the United States. And when an old planter obtained fifteen small bales from five acres, it was not thought strange that he exclaimed, “Well, well, I have done with cotton; here is enough to make stockings for all the people of America.”  In 1791 the export was the meagre item of 189,316 pounds, or less than 5,000 bales; in 1800 it had reached 17,789,803 pounds; in 1860, 1,767,686,338 pounds, or 3,812,345 bales.

It will be seen that Great Britain used a little more than half, During the entire progress of the improvement of the last generation in cotton manufacturing, that country has maintained very nearly the same proportion, viz: fifty per cent. of the consumption of the world.

In 1860 the product of the United States was 5,198,077; other cotton-producing countries swelled the aggregate to nearly 6,000,000 bales.

This production, the sum total of the cotton of commerce wrought by the factories of the world, does not include that used in the domestic manufactures of the natives of India and other semi-barbarous cotton countries, which is wildly guessed at in the computations of English statisticians, and made equal to the entire product of the manufactories.

The United States consumed 910,090 bales in 1860, or nearly one million bales; Great Britain the same year consumed about three and a half millions.

For twenty years past Great Britain has received from fifty to sixty per cent. of our crop.

production of the world; and the manufactories of the United States have attained a consumption of nearly one-fifth, or twenty per cent. of this crop.

There is, of course, little importation of cotton into this country—amounting, in 1860, to $140,387, from the British West Indies and Hayti mainly.

Our own manufactures of cotton goods, in 1860, were valued at $115,137,926; the imports of manufactured cottons were $32,559,024; the exports, $10,934,796.  This left for consumption $136,762,154.

The European cotton mills had so increased their facilities up to 1860 that they were able to use 100,000 bales weekly, or more than five millions of bales, or five-sixths of the entire production of the world.

Of the cotton imports into England, those from this country were fifty-two per cent. of the total in 1820; seventy-two per cent. in 1830; seventy-seven in 1840; sixty-seven in 1850; in 1860 eighty per cent.

The exports of manufactured cottons from Great Britain, in 1860, were a little over £50,000,000, or about $250,000,000.