Jump Down Turn Around Pick a Bale of Cotton

Cotton plant with the bolls open and ready to be picked.  

Farming and textiles were the main sources of income in Cleveland County, NC during the 40s and 50s and cotton was the main crop of the farmers. I think I was perhaps the only person in the county who really enjoyed picking cotton.  Although we lived in the country surrounded by farmers, my father was a machinist at the Dover Industries Cotton Mills so I did not have to pick cotton as many of my friends did.  But I couldn't wait to get in the cotton fields. I actually got PAID for picking cotton for neighbor farmers.

My older cousins were picking for a neighbor farmer when I was quite young, preschool age, probably five.  They took me with them to the field that was near my house and I picked for a short time, and I got paid with a check for $5.00.  This would have been in the early 1940s, and I certainly didn't pick enough for that big paycheck.  Perhaps the farmer thought that as a child if I picked any amount of cotton it was worth $5.00.  Taking that check home was one of the proudest moments in my young life.  So proud that I didn't want to cash the check, but finally Daddy convinced me to go with him to the bank, and we cashed the check. I had to stand on tip-toes to hand the check to the teller, and I wasn't too happy about cashing the check.  For some reason, the check represented more money than the cash did in my little mind.

I was probably ten or eleven when I started picking cotton on a regular basis.  I could hardly wait for school to be dismissed for six weeks of cotton-picking season.  In the summer, we were in school for six weeks to make up for the time we would miss in the fall while picking cotton.  Most of my classmates were children of farmers and they had to help their families with cotton-picking, for me, it was a way to make money.

We were surrounded by cotton fields.  The closest neighbor had a daughter (BJ) who was about the same age as I and she was my best childhood friend.  So that was the family that I and my sister Martha mostly picked for. My grandmother would make me a cotton-picking sack every season using a burlap sack to which she attached a soft strap that went over my shoulder.  (I don't know why I didn't keep them from year to year.) We would go down a row picking until our sack was full.  Our sack of cotton was dumped onto our own personal "sheet" which was also made of burlap sacks sewn together.

By afternoon there would be a large pile of cotton on the sheet, and with the sun beating down it made a pleasant place to have a little rest, or maybe even a nap.  One could bury her nose in the cotton and the distinctive fragrance emanating from the warm cotton was comforting.  So comforting that when I was in my early 50s undergoing chemo for breast cancer and was told to think of something pleasant as the toxic chemicals coursed through my veins, I would pretend I was lying on a big pile of cotton warmed by the sun and imagine the soothing aroma of warm cotton.

One of the hazards of picking cotton was the stinging Pack Saddle a caterpillar that fed on cotton leaves.  A sting from this little creature was very painful.  There was often a telltale sign that a Pack Saddle was in a stalk of cotton because there would be little black drops of poop left on the leaves or on the ground.  This forewarning would usually prevent one from being stung because you could locate the caterpillar and remove it from the stalk. But I was stung nevertheless many times.

Pack Saddle on a cotton leaf. 

At the end of the day, the sheets full of cotton were tied up and weighed and the farmer would write down the weight of cotton for each person for the day.  At the end of the week, the daily weights were added and it was payday!  The sheets of cotton were emptied into a wagon and taken to the barn. I think the pay was usually something like $2.00 for each hundred pounds or fraction thereof up to $4.00 per hundred.  So I could easily make $15.00 per week, which was good money I thought for a hard-working kid.

Once a farmer had accumulated around 600 to 800 pounds of cotton, it would be time to take the cotton to the local cotton gin to be baled.  The first time I went to the cotton gin in Lattimore, BJ's father allowed us to ride in the wagon full of cotton that was pulled by a mule.  At the gin, the wagon was vacuumed up under a big suction apparatus, and I was a bit scared that maybe we would be sucked up too.  It was safe.  The cotton was baled, weighed, and I suppose the farmer was then paid for the bale.  Soon the mule was replaced with a Farmall Tractor and that made a much faster trip to the cotton gin. I'm sure it made plowing of the fields much easier as well.

A Farmall tractor very similar to the one BJ's father had.  

The cotton-picking season began in early September about two weeks before the James Strates Cleveland County Fair would come to Shelby. This fair was the biggest in the state excepting the State Fair in Raleigh.  The money I made during those two weeks I saved to spend at the Fair.

After the Fair, I would save my money to buy new school clothes for the winter. 

I suppose I picked cotton until I was 16 years old.  I was a fast picker, and I remember the most I ever picked was 210 pounds in one day. Once I was sixteen and could drive I saught other jobs.  But I still have the fondest memories of my years in the cotton patch. 

As we were picking in the fields we would often sing this song among others.  There would be BJ, my sister and me, BJ parents, sometimes her Grandmother, and sometimes her aunts.  It was great fun.

....In Them Old Cotton Fields Back Home*

Whenever I visit Cleveland County in October, I love seeing the fields of cotton, and it reminds me of my "cotton picking" days as a kid back in the fifties.  There's not as much cotton grown there these days though.  And now the cotton is picked by machines not by hand.

A Cleveland County field of cotton in 2011.

In the forties and fifties, cotton was a major crop in Cleveland County.  Since the farmers depended on all the family to pick the cotton, school would dismiss for six weeks in the fall so that children of farmers would be available to help harvest the crop. School was in session for six weeks during the summer to compensate for the time off.

Although we lived in the country surrounded by cotton fields, my father was not a farmer.  In cotton picking season I picked cotton for neighbors and got paid for it. That's how I made money to spend at the Cleveland County Fair each fall.  I may have been the only kid in Cleveland County who loved to pick cotton.  If I had been obligated to pick, perhaps I would have felt like my friends who "hated" to pick cotton. 

 As a kid I thought the cotton plant was beautiful in all of its stages, and as a botanist I came to understand the life cycle of the plant.  In the summer the plant produces beautiful yellow flowers.

Flower of the cotton plant.

 Once the flower is pollinated it turns pink.

Cotton flower pink after pollination.

 The ovary of the flower  develops into the cotton boll which botanically speaking is a "fruit".

The cotton bolls.

 When the "fruit" or boll is ripe it opens  to expose the seeds which are surrounded by the beautiful white fibers that we know as cotton.

A mature plant showing the bolls opened and seeds with the cotton fibers attached.

  Sometimes we would sing the following song while in the fields picking cotton.


Jump down, turn around
To pick a bale of cotton
Jump down, turn around
To pick a bale a day. 

 Chorus:Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton,
Oh Lordy, pick a bale a day. 

I would love to have just one October day as a kid again in "them old cotton fields back home" so I could pick me some cotton.

*  This post is dedicated to my good friend, Libby, who still cannot understand that as a kid I loved to pick cotton.  : )

My friend Libby (on right) and me, probably juniors in high school, scanned from high school yearbook.

Check out this link for a tale about picking cotton:
http://www.norrisc.com/cotton.html