King Cotton

King Cotton. . , Georgia colonists were quick to experiment with plants that could be cultivated to supply income. While growing mulberry to produce silk, grapes to produce wine and indigo to produce dye were marginally successful, those early enterprises proved economically unsound. Rice cultivation was profitable but was restricted to coastal marshes. As settlers migrated into the Georgia backcountry they farmed tobacco. However, it was sea island cotton that introduced Georgians to the cash crop that shaped the state's economy. In the 19th century upland, short staple cotton spread into the interior and dominated the state's agriculture. In 1860, Georgia's cotton harvest yielded 700,000 bales. During world war one, cotton production averaged 1.7 million bales per year. In Georgia, cotton was "King," and Savannah evolved into a thriving international marketplace due to the valuable commodity. , Gossypium Barbadense , Thomas Spalding greatly encouraged the cultivation of sea island cotton in coastal Georgia. In 1824, the planter remarked,"When God abandoned man in paradise, to save him from despair, he plucked from Eden's bower One Flower and planted in his bosom, watered by love divine, it grew, and grows there still. It is Hope. In every dark, disastrous hour, look to this flower, for it has amuletic power, far beyond the Lamp of Aladdin, far beyond the Ring of Solomom." , Picking Georgia Cotton , Cotton was planted in the spring and the bolls tediously picked by hand in the autumn. It was transported from the fields in baskets or sacks to the gin to remove seeds. After cleaning, the cotton fiber was pressed into bales., Ships Loading "White Gold" on the Savannah Dock , "As we walked, day by day, through the Savannah streets, late into autumn, we were amazed at the masses of the cotton bales piled everywhere. They lined the commercial avenues for hundreds of rods, down by the waterside they were heaped in mammoth piles, and the processions of drays seemed endless. The huge black ships swallowed bale after bale; the clank of the hoisting-crane was heard for morning to till night.", Cotton Awaiting Shipment to Mills in Europe , Cotton bales stacked along a Savannah wharf await trans-Atlantic shipment in 1914. That year marked a world record production of the Georgia commodity., Inventor Eli Whitney , Eli Whitney demonstrated a keen talent for mechanical inventions. While residing at the Mulberry Grove plantation of General Nathanael Greene's widow, he "struck out a plan of a Machine" for cleaning green cotton. In 1794, Whitney erected a gin on a ballast foundation near the Greene home. Despite its amazing success, patent litigation precluded financial rewards for Whitney. He retired to Connecticut and immersed body and spirit into the manufacture of small arms.