Carolina
planters thinning their shoots in order to have sturdy plants from
which to select the ones eventually allowed to grow. States farther
south get at the task earlier. After the thinning process is over the
plants are hilled up like potatoes and the spaces between the rows,
where the last season's crop previously grew, is plowed to keep the
soil open and free for drainage. Men afterward travel through the open
rows hoeing up the loose soil and heaping it around the young plants to
strengthen and protect them; then, since nothing more can be done
immediately everybody takes a rest and waits."

"Then what happens?" piped Tim.

"Oh, after a time the same process is repeated. The earth by this time
has become crusted over and must be opened up again; the hauling, too,
takes place once more. Hauling is the name given to bedding up the
plants with loose earth. Often there are four or five _haulings_. By
July the plants have grown sufficiently to show which one in each hill
is to be the most thrifty and this one is left to grow while the other
shoots are pulled up. After that, given sunny days and occasional light
showers, the crop should prosper. Should there, however, be too much
heat, or too great a quantity of rain, things will not move so
successfully."

"How long does cotton have to grow before it is ready for picking?"
asked Carl.

"The plants bloom approximately the middle of June--sometimes earlier,
sometimes later, according to the climates of the various States. Two
months after that the crop is ready to be gathered. You must not,
however, run away with the notion that cotton-picking is a hurried
process. Often it goes on from the end of August until into November or
December. It is a long-drawn-out, tedious, monotonous task. Whole
families join in the harvesting for since there is always some low and
some tall cotton (some annual and some perennial varieties) the
children can share with their elders in the work and thus earn quite a
sum of money. In fact, in the old days before child labor laws
protected the kiddies, and while cotton-picking was done by slaves,
many a poor little mite toiled cruelly long in the fields. Even the
older negroes were driven with whips and compelled to keep at work
until utterly exhausted."

His audience gasped.

"Yes," nodded their uncle, "I am afraid that urged forward by the
desire to garner a big crop before rain should fall and spoil it, the
cotton growers practice