Cotton and corn were in the field.  The former was to receive immediate attention.  On the day after my arrival I mustered thirty-four laborers of all ages and both sexes, and placed them at work, under the superintendence of a foreman.  During the afternoon I visited them in the field, to observe the progress they were making.  It was the first time I had ever witnessed the operation, but I am confident I did not betray my inexperience in the presence of my colored laborers.  The foreman asked my opinion upon various points of plantation management, but I deferred making answer until a subsequent occasion.  In every case I told him to do for the present as they had been accustomed, and I would make such changes as I saw fit from time to time.

Cotton-picking requires skill rather than strength.  The young women are usually the best pickers, on account of their superior dexterity.  The cotton-stalk, or bush, is from two to five or six feet high.  It is unlike any plant with which we are familiar in the North.  It resembles a large currant-bush more nearly than any thing else I can think of.  Where the branches are widest the plant is three or four feet from side to side.  The lowest branches are the longest, and the plant, standing by itself, has a shape similar to that of the Northern spruce.  The stalk is sometimes an inch and a half in diameter where it leaves the ground.  Before the leaves have fallen, the rows in a cotton-field bear a strong resemblance to a series of untrimmed hedges.

When fully opened, the cotton-bolls almost envelop the plant in their snow-white fiber.  At a distance a cotton-field ready for the pickers forcibly reminds a Northerner of an expanse covered with snow.  Our Northern expression, “white as snow,” is not in use in the Gulf States.  “White as cotton” is the form of comparison which takes its place.

The pickers walk between the rows, and gather the cotton from the stalks on either side.  Each one gathers half the cotton from the row on his right, and half of that on his left.  Sometimes, when the stalks are low, one person takes an entire row to himself, and gathers from both sides of it.  A bag is suspended by a strap over the shoulder, the end of the bag reaching the ground, so that its weight may not be an inconvenience.  The open boll is somewhat like a fully bloomed water-lily.  The skill in picking lies in thrusting the fingers into the boll so as to remove all the cotton with a single motion.  Ordinary-pickers grasp the boll with one hand and pluck out the cotton with the other.  Skillful pickers work with both hands, never touching the bolls, but removing the cotton by a single dextrous twist of the fingers.  They can thus operate with great rapidity.

As fast as the bags are filled, they are emptied into large baskets, which are placed at a corner of the field or at the ends of the rows.  When the day’s work is ended the cotton is weighed.  The amount brought forward by each person is noted on a slate, from which it is subsequently recorded on the account-book of the plantation.