The Cotton is ready to be picked
To me, cotton is a beautiful plant. It has a clean scent, and is so soft to touch. Yes, I did smell cotton for the first time yesterday...
It has a hard shell that holds that fluffy bloom.
This picture is how cotton used to be picked.. I used to have one of those cotton baskets like in this picture.. It was so old, it fell apart. I sure miss it... I don't know what it was made of.. but it was grayish white in color. The south is known for it's cotton. Some may think of the Civil War stories.. But, Sharecropping was big in the south from 1870 to the 1950's. There were white and black families sharecropping. My grandmother picked cotton growing up. I was told she said that the machines wasted more than the people picking it. They picked it all. Piece by piece. If you travel over our highways during this time, You will see fluffy white all over the sides of the road. It is Cotton that has blown from the 18-wheelers that haul the cotton.
Then the machines came on the scene. Looks like a giant vacuum. This one looks like.. the person could pick faster than that machine.
This machine seems to be almost like they use today but, smaller. I think the men in the suits are funny.
These are our machines of today. They harvest, and compress to get the cotton ready for travel. There are still cotton gins around. Not as many as years ago. 
Here is the cotton ready to be transported. Trucks.. usually 18 wheelers come to pick these up. Better than a mule and cart.
So.. This month is a big month for cotton picking in Alabama.
Fields will go from this...
To This....
My uncle Don did explain that, they will sometimes go back over a Field to get the remaining cotton. This field looks pretty clean compared to some I seen.
I hope you enjoyed my Cotton Picking Post. I drove all over my county yesterday taking pictures. I tried to pull up some of this White Gold.. (cotton) I could not get it to come out of it's dirt.. I wanted some of the plants to put in my old wooden box.
Plus... those farmers were watching there fields like hawks!! lol
Pictures is all I could take....
8 comments:
Great post!! Loved seeing the fields!
These are wonderful pictures. I think cotton fields are so pretty. We have a few up this way and I love looking at them.
Oh how beautiful! I love cotton. Of course, because of the fabric that comes from it!! hee,hee,hee.
There are lots of church groups around here that make pointsettia pins from the pods. They paint them red and put a pin back on them. Quite lovely.
xx
My dad grew up on a cotton farm! (they grew cotton and soybeans - I don't think he would care to pick either now) My uncle owns it now (he doesn't farm it himself but leases out most of the land so it is still being used as farmland) He built a house next to the farmhouse they grew up in and lives there. Sadly the old barn had to be torn down years ago but I can still see it in my mind.
What as wonderful post. Thanks for giving up a cotton picking lesson!
Love this post. saw cotton in the field last fall for the first time in North Carolina. It's so pretty. We got a boll off the ground in SC and are going to try to grow a cotton plant, not sure if it will grow up here, though.
When we went to my mom's last week I was explain to my son about picking cotton. My great aunt and uncle great cotton and my mom picked it as a child growing up. It was really hard on your hands from the stories they tell.
I love your Photos about the Cotton...that is so interesting...and I love to read about the story of Cotton Picking too...thanks for posting that.
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