TXGenWeb Robertson County Books & Master's Theses

By Manford Eugene Jones
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History.
University of New Mexico, 1939

Texas A&M University History Professor Dale Baum purchased a copy of this thesis from the university's library and contributed it to this site.  It is used with permission of Manford Allen Jones, son of the author Manford Eugene Jones.  These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format by other organizations or individuals. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the written consent of Manford Allen Jones or contact Jane Keppler, Robertson County TXGenWeb coordinator.

CHAPTER II:  PREPARATION OF LAND & THE CULTIVATING & HARVESTING OF COTTON

The difference between an efficient and an inefficient cotton grower lies chiefly in his judgment as to when and how to cultivate the crop.  This discussion divides itself into three areas: namely, preparation of land and cultivation to 1885, from 1885 to 1910, and from 1910 to the present time.

The details of cotton culture from the beginning until 1910 are best told through interviews with pioneers.[16]  From the beginning of cotton planting along the middle Brazos until after the Civil War, the only tools used in the cultivation were the turning plow and the scovel hoe or "eye hoe."  The turning plow had an iron point and moldboard and was made in different sizes from a one horse plow to a three horse plow.  The scovel hoe was large and heavy with a long handle, and could be used to chop young sprouts as well as weeds.

The first step in land preparation is to get rid of the stalks from the previous crop.  This was no easy task in the early years, as the stalks grew ten to thirteen feet high and produced heavy branches.  A stalk puller, which consisted of a chain on the end of a hoe handle, was often used.  The chain was wrapped around the cotton stalk; and with the leverage thus secured, one man could pull up the plant.  Sometimes axes were used to cut the stalks.  The plants were then piled in huge bundles and burned.  This was a waste of good vegetable matter that would have helped the soil, but there was no other practical way of getting rid of the stalks.

Then, with a turning plow, the land was center furrowed in rows five to six feet apart, and then four furrowed, which means there were six furrows in the row.  This preliminary work was usually done in January or February.  The turning plow was pulled by either mules or oxen.  Then, the land was allowed to catch the winter rains until April.

The advantages of winter plowing are given by Brown as follows:

"There are several advantages in winter plowing; (1) it gives the planter a chance to get ahead with his work, so as to be able to plant his crop more quickly when suitable weather comes in the spring; (2) vegetation turned under early has time to decay and to benefit the following crop; (3) fresh soil brought up from the subsoil has time to weather and it important chemical elements become available to plants; (4) insect pests are controlled in a measure."[17]

In the next operation, the turning plow was used again to make six furrows where the original four furrow work was done.  After this, the land was logged off, which means the beds were dragged with a log or a railroad iron.  These railroad irons were sometimes surreptitiously taken from the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, and later from the International & Great Northern which ran parallel with the river.  This logging was done to break the crust that the rains formed on the beds and to expose a loose pulverized bed for planting.  By the middle of April or sometimes in the latter part of March, the cotton was planted by opening a furrow with the turning plow and dropping the seed by hand, and then covering it with the same turning plow.  This would seem a laborious contrast indeed to the present day methods of machine planting, and it was a very slow process.  The one who planted carried the seed in a sack with a strap over his shoulder, leaving one hand free to sow.  The turning plow covered the seed fairly deep; thus often causing them to rot if the season was rainy.

After the cotton came up, the turning plows were used to "bar" the cotton.  In this procedure, the dirt was thrown away from the plant and all weeds were killed in the middles.  The next step was the chopping or thinning of the cotton, which was done with the heavy scovel hoe.  The cotton was thinned to one stalk in a hill - the stalks being about twenty-four inches apart, as they produced large plants and needed plenty of room.  At the same time, all the weeds were cut around the plants.

The turning plow was then used to throw the dirt up near the plant, and at each succeeding plowing it reached farther out between the rows.  The cotton was plowed usually three times.  Modern culture require more than this, as it has been found that extra plowing increases the yield.  After the cotton was chopped, it was hoed about three times - which means that the weeds were cut on the row that the plow could not reach.  Later in the summer, if patches of weeds appear, they were plowed up or chopped up.  After the last hoeing and the last plowing in July, the cotton was said to be "laid by", and the farmer had a season of rest until picking time near the first of September.

The off season referred to above was looked forward to each year by first the slaves and later the field hands.  For several days or weeks, the laborers simply rested and basked in the sunshine of the summer season.  Fishing and other mild sports were the order of the day, and many a skillet was greased with the big catfish from the Brazos or the swamp rabbit from the Bottom underbrush.  There was much visitation between plantations, and in later years, neighborhood parties called "suppers" were indulged in by young and old.  The reason they were called "suppers" was the beef barbecue and other good things to eat were sold and the proceeds used for church or lodge purposes.  At these "suppers", the people sometimes played group games, and a great deal of gambling was the rule.  This has always been the most carefree and contented season for the Negro.  He could indulge his natural bent for laziness to the greatest degree, the hot weather was to his liking, he was more or less free from the strict orders of the "boss" or overseer, he could vary his diet with game, and he looked forward to a few extra dollars in the harvest season.

In the meantime, the cotton was continuing to grow and develop an enormous amount of foliage and bolls.  The cotton rows were six feet apart, and the plant grew from nine to thirteen feet, which would come to the height of a man on horseback.  The limbs of the plant overlapped each other in the middles, and at the last plowing, the team and plowmen could not be seen more than a few yards down the row.  The rows were long, and often there would be several hundred acres in one field.  No doubt it was a wonderful view to see a large field of cotton with its dark green foliage ringed by the river on one side and tall cottonwoods or oaks on the other.  During the blooming season, the fields resemble a flower garden with their brilliant reds and alabaster white.

When picking time came, a Negro was placed on each side of a row, as the cotton was too tall and thick for one man to pick an entire row.  In later years, the pickers each took a row and sometimes tow rows at a time.  Great care and pride were exercised in picking clean cotton and not allowing any leaves or trash to fall in the sacks.  However, the more modern gins have machinery that extracts all trash, and most fast workers get considerable rubbish in the sack.  To ease the back-breaking labor of picking, the Negroes made knee pads out of old quilts and crawled down the middles.  Knee pads are now manufactured from leather and felt.  Each picker has a sack made from about six yards of eight-ounce duck with a strap across the shoulder by which he dragged the sack down the middles.  Personal experience teaches that one of the heaviest physical tasks in cotton production is the dragging of this sack filled with cotton.  When the sack was full, it was thrown across the shoulder and carried to the scales at the cotton wagon where it was weighed and emptied.  The amount of cotton picked each day varied with the individual.  About two hundred pounds would be the average, but some pickers have been known to pick five and even six hundred pounds.

When the cotton wagon was loaded with about sixteen hundred pounds of seed cotton, it was hauled to the nearest gin, and the ginner would take about one-fourth of the seed cotton as his price for ginning.  The bale of lint cotton would weigh from five hundred to five hundred fifty pounds.  All of the large farms had their own gins.

When the era from 1885 to 1910 was reached, the production of cotton had undergone many changes, especially from the standpoint of the machinery and tools used.

In the fall of the year, the stalks were still disposed of in much the same manner as the in the beginning of cotton culture here.  In other words, the were logged down or pulled up and burned.

The middlebuster, which is a double turning plow and prepares one row with each furrow, had come into general use at this time.  This middlebuster, which took the place of the turning plow, was used to break up the land in January of each year.  Then, the land was allowed to catch the winter rains; and, if the land became weedy, the middlebuster was used a second time.

When planting time came, the cotton beds were leveled or broken down by the use of logs or railroad irons.  Then, a large sweep (a shovel-like plow) was used ahead of the planter to level the row.  The planter, which had been recently developed, followed behind the sweep.

The first type of cotton planter was called the roller type and came into use about 1880.  It was made of wood, and had one wheel with a box attached to the side of this wheel.  As the wheel turned, the box was agitated and seed dropped out of a hole in the bottom of the box.

After the cotton came up, it was chopped and hoed in much the same manner as has been described earlier.  A much lighter how, which was called the "goose-neck hoe", had been developed by this time.  However, the old heavy "scovel hoe" was still used where the land was heavy or foul with weeds and sprouts.

By this time, the cultivation after the cotton came up was being done with a cultivator.  The cultivator has two or four plows or shovels so arranged as to straddle the row of cotton.  So, in one round with the cultivator, one could accomplish as much as two or four rounds with a turning plow.  Under the original system of farming, one man could plow and work no more than twenty-five acres, but by 1900 one man could work fifty acres.

The cotton was plowed with the cultivator three or four times and "laid by" as formerly described.

The picking was done in very much the same manner as before except for better knee pads.  By 1900, cotton lint was so improved that thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds of seed cotton made a five hundred pound bale of lint.  The ginners at this time took money for the ginning and charged thirty cents for one hundred pounds of seed cotton and enough extra for bagging and ties to make $3.50 to $3.75 a bale.

The Youngblood farm near Waco is an example of modern methods of cotton culture.[18]

As one enters Youngblood's farm, the long rows of almost perfect cotton plants and the general neat appearance of the entire farm show the efficiency with which it is managed.  His stucco bungalow, ample barns, and storage sheds for farm machinery testify for the progressive spirit of their owner.

In modern methods of cotton culture, there are two types of machines for cutting stalks after the cotton is picked.  The rolling stalk cutter is used wherever the stalks are no unusually large.  It consists of a small axle or cylinder with prongs supporting five cutting blades which rotate when pulled.  There are one or two row types, and the stalks are cut into several pieces, thereby making them easy to turn under with a plow.

The sliding stalk cutter is used where the cotton makes a large plant.  It consists of two rigid blades extending out at an angle from a moving platform.  As this platform is pulled along, the razor-sharp blades on each side cut the stalks off very close to the ground.  The stalks are then raked into piles and burned, as this cutter does not cut them to pieces as does the rolling cutter.  The sliding cutter take two rows at a time.

The middlebuster is started near the last of November; and if the beds get grassy, the farmer rebeds or runs between the beds with a sweep.  The beds are always plowed with cultivators before planting to destroy weeds and make a well pulverized seed bed.

Planting starts by or before the fifteenth of April, and modern-type planters are used with a sweep attached in front of the seed dropper to level off the bed.

The rows are thirty-six inches apart, and the cotton is thinned or chopped to nine inches apart with two or three stalks left in a hill.  It will be noticeable here that the rows are much closer together than formerly and the cotton is not thinned as much.  The chief reason for this is that the cotton does not grow as tall and spread out as much as formerly.

The cotton is plowed with the cultivator from four to five times, and it is hoed for weeds three times or more.

Most Bottom farmers now use tractors to pull their farm machinery.  Some are using them altogether, while others keep one tractor to supplement their mules when it is necessary to work fast in a rush reason.  When the tractor is used to plant or cultivate, four rows are taken at a a time.  So, one man on a tractor can plow or plant as much land in one day as formerly six or eight men could with mules.

The cotton matures earlier than formerly, this characteristic being bred into the plant to beat the leafworm and other insects.  In a dry year, picking will start by the middle of August, this being nearly a month earlier than it started fifty years ago.

There are practically no changes in the method of picking cotton, and it still remains the most tedious job in cotton production.

It takes thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds of seed cotton to make a five hundred pound bale.  The seed cotton is hauled to the nearest gin in wagons pulled by mules or in trucks.  Some wagons are enlarged to hold two bales of seed cotton, and sometimes as many as three wagons are tied together and pulled by six mules hitched to the front wagon.  Sometimes, these six mules are driven with one line attached to a lead mule that has been trained to turn right or left on command.

In the heyday of cotton production, gins were often crowded, and sometimes the farmer waited several hours before his bale could be ginned.  Gins often ran all night with two crews of workmen, and the cotton wagons ran races to get ahead of the others at the gin.

The price now charged for ginning varies from eight-five to ninety-cents a hundred for seed cotton.  This is from ten to twelve dollars a bale, which is considerably more than formerly charged.

It is rather interesting to note how valuable cotton seed has become in recent years.  During the early period of cotton growing along the middle Brazos, seed was practically worthless, as the cotton oil mill with its products of cake, meal, and shortening fats had not been invented.

Cotton seed has sold as low as $3.50 a ton, but in later years it has sold for a much as $60.00 a ton.  This would make the seed from one bale of cotton worth nearly $30.00 at a price of $60 a ton.  The modern cotton farmer expects his seed to pay for the picking and the ginning.

During the early years, cotton seed were used as cow feed and sometimes spread on the land for fertilizer.  In this period, the farmer took all of his seed home from the gin and stored them in a seed-house, built of logs, to feed cattle or to scatter on the land for fertilizer.  The old-time seed-house was a favorite spot for the children to play, as many fantastic figures could be built from the seed.  It also served to preserve ice when ice factories were first built in that section.

By 1900, the general practice was to leave the seed at the gin, or rather to sell them to the gin owner.  The ginner, in order to determine the weight of the seed, weighed the wagon with seed cotton on it, and then weighed the empty wagon.  The weight of the empty wagon plus the lint cotton was subtracted from the weight of the wagon of seed cotton.  However, the seed was often caught in the wagon and sold to a seed buyer, called a "street buyer", who usually gave one dollar more a ton than the gin owner.  "Street buyers"  have disappeared in recent years, as gin owners started meeting their prices.

Soil conservation should be a natural outgrowth of cotton culture, but, sad to state, it has been given very little attention along the Brazos River.  The natural richness of the alluvial soil and the lack of ast soil erosion due to the level Bottom lands have contributed to the indifference to soil conservation.  The best Bottom land will still produce within one-fourth bale an acres as much as it ever did, which is much slower depreciation than the prairie lands on each side of the river.  The production of the best prairie land is reduced almost half after thirty to fiftey years of cotton culture.

Of course, some rotation between cotton and corn has been practiced in the Bottom, as the farmer who uses mules plants form for feeding purposes.  However, he will not average planting one-fourth of his land in corn each year, and so does not have a complete rotation.

No terraces have ever been built, as the land is too level to develop many "washes".  Some drainage ditches have been dug in swampy areas near the river.  The Bottom soil has deteriorated to some extent, because cotton takes out an enormous amount of plant food.

In connection with the discussion of cotton cultivation come the oxen and mules that furnished the motive power for farm operations until the modern tractor was developed.

The oxen used along the middle Brazos were the typical longhorn Texas steers about which center so many stories and so much folklore.[19]

When the steers were three or four years old, a pair would be brought to the lot and yoked together.  They would be left in the lot to get used to the yoke.  This first yoke consisted of an elm slab fastened to the neck of each by a chain.  Sometimes, the unbroken oxen were hitched directly in front of the near oxen to a wagon, and the ones in front and rear kept the unruly ones in order.

After the oxen were broken, they were hitches as follows:  The yoke was placed on the neck of the "off" (left) ox; and the bow under his neck, with the key inserted.  Then, the "near" (right) ox would step under the yoke, and the same procedure would be followed.

In plowing, usually one pair of oxen were used, because the fields were full of stumps.  In pulling wagons, at least three yoke, or six oxen, were used.  The command to go right was "Back, Charlie", and to the left was "Whoa, Jeff".

The reason oxen were first used instead of mules was that very little feed had to be bought for them, as they lived on native grasses.

The price varied from forty dollars a pair to as low as twenty-five dollars a pair.  In a few cases, a good pair of oxen brought one hundred dollars.

The principal virtues of oxen were that they were good pullers and were never known to balk, their upkeep was light, and they were not subject to sickness.  Their principal defect was that they were slow and could not plow as many acres a day as could mules.  Their use was discontinued after 1900.

The Spanish-type mule has always been used in the Brazos bottom.  He came from native mares and Spanish jacks.  The Spanish mule had a black stripe down his back and tail, and black zebra-like stripes around his legs.  This mule averaged seven or eight hundred pounds.  His light weight was his chief defect, as otherwise he was hardy, a good worker, and easy to keep in excellent physical condition.

As farm machines became heavier, the Spanish mule disappeared; and the modern mule weighs eleven hundred pounds or more.  Breed mares were improved, and jacks were brought from Tennessee and Kentucky.  There is a great deal of debate among Bottom farmers at the present time concerning the advisability of using mules or tractors.  Where Negro labor is used, the tractor is not practical, as the usual field hand is too unskilled to handle a tractor.

The modern mule has sold for as high as three hundred dollars each, while the Spanish mule never brought more than fifty dollars each.

[16] Information secured by interview with R. L. McCall, pioneer farmer near Calvert, Texas, since 1876.
[17] H. B. Brown, Cotton (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1927), p. 241.
[18] Information secured by interview with J. W. Youngblood, a farmer living twelve miles southeast of Waco on land included in the C. S. Lankart cotton breeding farms.
[19] Information secured by interview with A. P. Tomlinson, pioneer farmer near Marlin, Texas, concerning oxen and mules.