South Carolina Cotton Information

Year	Acres Planted	Bales Harvested
1991	211,000	344,000
1992	195,000	226,000
1993	202,000	204,000
1994	225,000	393,000
1995	348,000	376,000
1996	284,000	455,000
1997	290,000	410,000
1998	290,000	350,000
1999	330,000	275,000
2000	300,000	380,000
2001	300,000	296,000

689 pounds per acre
425,000 total bales
Source: Cotton Stats from South Carolina Ag Statistics

The first cottonseed came to South Carolina with the Europeans on their sailing vessels. Any man unable to pay passage to the colonies was allowed to make payment with 200 pounds of cotton, ginger, or tobacco within two years of arrival.

Cotton was first exported from South Carolina to England in 1764, and the first cotton mill was built on James Island in 1789. Sea Island cotton, which had long, fine, strong fibers, was favored in both English and American markets. Mrs. Kinsey Burden of St. Paul’s Parish raised the first long-staple cotton crop in South Carolina, and William B. Seabrook of Edisto Island discovered that the best seed for growing Sea Island cotton was the "black seed" variety.

During the Civil War, the Confederate government banned the export of cotton, hoping to produce a cotton famine in England and France which would force these nations to recognize the Confederacy and to lend support. After the war, Confederates burned and Northerners seized the remaining cotton bales. By the time the nation entered WWI, the boll weevil had infiltrated the cotton fields in South Carolina, and cotton farming began to suffer.

Today, with new bioengineered planting products and better mechanization, fertilization, and irrigation techniques, cotton has come full circle. And, the Boll Weevil Eradication Program and better disease, weed, and insect control from crop protection chemicals have helped to increase yields significantly on half the acreage from the days that cotton was called "King". Because of the program, cotton growers use fewer pesticides than in the past, and they have adopted tillage practices that minimize soil erosion. Cotton truly is in harmony with its environment.

Cotton remains a vital part of our daily lives from the time we dry our faces on a soft cotton towel in the morning until we slide between fresh cotton sheets at night. It is used for everything from blue jeans to shoe strings.

All parts of the cotton plant are used. Cottonseed is crushed and separated into oil, meal, and hulls. The only cottonseed crusher and oil mill east of the Mississippi is in Hartsville, South Carolina. Cottonseed oil is used primarily for shortening cooking oil, and salad dressing. The meal and hulls are used either separately or in combination as livestock feed or fertilizer. Some cottonseed is used as a high-protein concentrate in baked goods and other food products.

The linters, the short fuzz on the seed, provide cellulose for making plastics, explosives, paper products, and batting for mattresses, furniture, automobile cushions.

Sea Island cotton (cotton with fibers 1 5/8" to 2" long) was the first cotton variety to be successful commercially. It grew near the coast in loose, sandy, soil. Used mainly for delicate fabrics, its silky fibers separated easily from the seeds.

Extra Long Staple Cotton fiber is 1 1/2" to 2" long. Some Extra Long Staple cotton called "Pima" is grown in Texas, but the rest of the cotton producing states grow Upland Cotton.

Upland Cotton strands of fiber range from 1" to 1 3/4" long. It is the type of cotton grown in South Carolina and the other cotton producing states. Upland Cotton became important commercially with the invention of the cotton gin in the 1790s. Before the use of the cotton gin, it would take a day for a worker to remove enough seeds by hand to make a pound of lint cotton. Between 1790 and 1860, the cotton gin had a greater impact on the South than any other invention. The gin made it possible to turn vast areas into cotton plantations.

Throughout the 19th century, cotton was farmed with plows, hoes, and strong backs. The hoe was the most important tool. Little progress was made in farm mechanization of cotton until a mechanical picker was developed in 1948.

Cotton is harvested in the fall, and the remaining stalks are cut down and turned under the soil. In the spring, the land is plowed and the soil is broken up and formed into rows.

Cotton needs a 200-day frost-free growing season. About two months after planting, flower buds called "squares" appear on the cotton plants. In another three weeks the blossoms open. The petals on the blossom change from creamy white to yellow, pink, and finally dark red. After three days, they wither and fall, leaving green pods called cotton bolls. Moist fibers grow inside the boll. As the boll ripens, it turns brown and the fibers continue to expand under the warm sun until they split the boll apart and the fluffy cotton burst forth. It looks like white cotton candy.

South Carolina is one of the 14 major cotton-producing states in the nation. Per acre cotton yield has increased significantly, due to improved plant varieties, better land use, mechanization, fertilization, and irrigation. It is also a result of better disease, weed, and insect control, especially because of the introduction of the Boll Weevil Eradication Program. Scientists at experiment stations and laboratories, agricultural extension workers who keep farmers informed and private industry are all contributors to the progress of cotton in South Carolina.

Cotton is seeded with mechanical planters which cover as many as 10 to 12 rows at a time. Planters open a small trench or furrow in each row, drop in the right amount of seed, cover them, and pack the earth on top of them. Cultivators are used to uproot weeds and grass. Cotton is harvested by machines which gather cotton 50 times faster than workers who handpick.

After harvesting, cotton is either stored at the edge of the field in big mounds called "modules" or loaded on trailers or trucks and transported to the gin. The raw cotton is piped through cleaning machines that remove the "trash" such as burs, dirt, stems, and leaf material. Then it goes to the gin stand where circular saws with small, sharp teeth pull the fiber from the seed.

The ginned fiber or lint is pressed into bales weighing about 500 pounds---some are large bales and others are small, compressed bales, but they all weigh about 500 pounds. Samples are taken from each bale and classed according to fiber length (staple), strength, width, color, and cleanliness. Growers then store their cotton in a warehouse or sell to a local buyer who, in turn, sells it to a textile mill.

At the textile mill, the bales are opened by machines, and the lint is mixed and cleaned further by blowing and beating. The short lint that comes out usually is separated and sold for use in other industries. The mixed and fluffed cotton is cleaned and the fibers are straightened and drawn into a soft, untwisted rope called a "sliver." The sliver is then drawn through machines which make the soft rope thinner. Then the fiber is twisted and wound on bobbins as cotton yarn. The yarn is woven on looms into fabrics. The woven fabric, the "gray goods," are then bleached, pre-shrunk, dyed, printed, and given a special finish before being wound on a bolt or made into clothing or products.

The Cotton Museum in Bishopville, SC, in the heart of cotton country is a place where the synthesis of South Carolina "culture" and "agriculture" come together under one roof. It is a nostalgic retrospective of cotton's past as well as an important economic value to the state.

The State Museum is housed in an old cotton mill on Gervais Street in Columbia, SC. Visitors can see an early cotton gin typical of the kind found on family plantation from the 1840s until the early 1900s. A 35-saw animal-powered model was used on the Coursar Plantation in Dillon County starting in the 1870s. Eli Whitney received the first patent for a cotton gin in 1794. He had accepted a teaching job in South Carolina when the family of the late Revolutionary War hero, Nathaniel Greene, invited him to visit Georgia where he invented the gin.

Southern States Cotton Gin processes about 24,700 bales of cotton a season or 11,856,000 pounds of cotton. That's enough cotton to make...

For more information:
South Carolina Cotton Board
% SC Department of Agriculture
PO Box 11280
Columbia, SC 29211
TEL: (803) 665-5154
FAX: (803) 665-5263
tcoleman@infoave.net