d much cruelty. No doubt, too, the same tyranny
reigned in India. Wherever work must be done by hand and labor is cheap
and plentiful, human beings come to be classed to a great extent as
machines. Plantation owners become so interested in the money they are
to make that they forget everything else. Of course labor was never as
cheap in our Southern States even during slave days as in India and
therefore until the advent of the cotton gin cotton was not one of our
valuable crops."

"You mean because the seeds had to be picked out by hand?" Carl said.

"Yes. There was, to be sure, the primitive kind of gin resorted to in
India for cleaning certain black-seed varieties. Two kinds of this
black-seed, or long-stapled cotton, grew in the Sea Islands and along
the coast from Delaware to Georgia; but it could not be made to thrive
away from the moist ocean climate. Hence on inland plantations a
different and more vigorous variety of plant (one having green seeds
and short staples) was propagated. This kind was known as Upland
cotton. It was a troublesome product for the planters, I assure you,
for its many seeds clung so tightly to the lint that it was almost out
of the question to remove them. The simple little gin copied from India
and successfully used on the black seed variety was entirely
impracticable on this Upland growth since it tore the fibers all to
bits."

"They did need a cotton gin, didn't they!" Carl ejaculated.

"Very badly, indeed," agreed Captain Dillingham. "Well, the only
substitute for machinery was fingers; and when I tell you that it often
took an entire day to get out of a three-pound batch of cotton a pound
or so that was clear of seeds you will understand what a slow process
it was."

"At that rate I shouldn't think it would have paid anybody to raise
cotton," sniffed Carl.

"It didn't," returned his uncle. "Moreover it rendered the product very
expensive, for it required a great number of slaves to clean any
considerable quantity of cotton. I often think of the toil and misery
that went into the cotton-growing of those slavery days. After working
for a long stretch of hours in the blazing sun the negroes came in at
night worn out. But were they allowed to rest? Perhaps some of them who
had considerate owners were; but many, many others less fortunate were
set to picking out seeds and lest they fall asleep at their task
overseers prodded them with whips."

"Gee!"

"That was slavery, son," d