From De Bow's Review. 12 (1852). 632-633.

      In the time we speak of, i.e., the few last years of the past century, and upwards, to about 1810, the black seed cotton was the only kind raised here, or, in fact, any where in our country. This was not so productive as the Tennessee green seed, which came into use about this latter date. Negroes could not pick more than one hundred pounds of the black seed cotton; it grew very large on the rich lands, and the bolls were apt to rot before opening; and besides all, the yields of lint was very small to the amount of gross weight. The common way of planting them was in checkers, or hills, about four feet one way, and a foot and a half or two feet the other, and even then the limbs would interlock. The little green seed was harder to pick than the black seed, and also harder to gin on the roller, or saw gin either.

      We give here an extract from the Cotton Book of G.W. Lovelace for October, 1817 when he raised the green seed cotton. He was a good thrifty planter in his time, and had some choice negroes; and here now is a specimen of their day's pickings for one week:

	Mon.	Tues.	Wed'y.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.	Totals.
Sally	57	49	58	51	52	58	325
Bill	66	55	56	59	58	57	351
Charles	46	45	48	54	55	62	310
Elsy	31	37	26	28	31	39	192
Nancy	42	49	54	53	42	52	293
Dave	19	20	18	22	27	23	129
Harry	68	68	44	69	78	78	405
Joe	34	41	50	51	49	52	277
Lewis	23	38	34	33	44	43	215

      On looking over the same book for the month of December, when the weather was colder, there is a proportional falling off in the picking. Probably if those same negroes could now be in our cotton fields, they would pick as much as our best negroes; whereas here we see that the best picker, in a whole week, got only as much as a thousands of negroes now can pick in one day. The cotton was grown on the rich bluff lands of Sicily Island, and was as good as any in the world.

      In early times it was a very common, in fact the prevailing practice, for heads of families to make the children all assemble around the fireplace at night; and each one had his task to do of picking out the seeds of the cotton for the purpose of getting it to spin, as this kind was much better to spin than that which run through the roller gin, or even the saw gin of more moderate date. The usual task for a lad to pick, between supper and bedtime, was as much as could be crammed into a pint tin cup. One old gentleman showed me his blackened and cracked thumbnails, and assured me that it was caused from picking seeds out of cotton when a boy.