A hundred and fifty pounds to the acre
and three or four acres to the hand was esteemed a reasonable crop on the
seaboard.[8] The exports of the sea-island staple rose by 1805 to nearly
nine million pounds, but no further expansion occurred until 1819 when an
increase carried the exports for a decade to about eleven million pounds a
year. In the course of the twenties Kinsey Burden and Hugh Wilson, both of
St. John's Colleton, began breeding superfine fiber through seed selection,
with such success that the latter sold two of his bales in 1828 at the
unequaled price of two dollars a pound. The practice of raising fancy
grades became fairly common after 1830, with the result, however, that for
the following decade the exports fell again to about eight million pounds a
year.[9]
[Footnote 8: John Drayton, _View of South Carolina_ (Charleston, 1802), p.
132; J.A. Turner, ed., _Cotton Planter's Manual_, pp. 129, 131.]
[Footnote 9: Seabrook, pp. 35-37, 53.]
Sea-island cotton, with its fibers often measuring more than two inches in
length, had the advantages of easy detachment from its glossy black seed by
squeezing it between a pair of simple rollers, and of a price for even its
common grades ranging usually more than twice that of the upland staple.
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