90.]

The problem of the time had two possible solutions; the invention of a
machine for cleaning the lint from the seed of the sort already at hand,
or the introduction of some different variety whose lint was more lightly
attached. Both solutions were applied, and the latter first in point of
time though not in point of importance.

About 1786 seed of several strains was imported from as many quarters
by planters on the Georgia-Carolina coast. Experiments with the Bourbon
variety, which yielded the finest lint then in the market, showed that
the growing season was too short for the ripening of its pods; but seed
procured from the Bahama Islands, of the sort which has ever since been
known as sea-island, not only made crops but yielded a finer fiber than
they had in their previous home. This introduction was accomplished by
the simultaneous experiments of several planters on the Georgia coast. Of
these, Thomas Spaulding and Alexander Bissett planted the seed in 1786 but
saw their plants fail to ripen any pods that year. But the ensuing winter
happened to be so mild that, although the cotton is not commonly a
perennial outside the tropics, new shoots grew from the old roots in the
following spring and yielded their crop in the fall.[3] Among those who
promptly adopted the staple was Richard Leake, who wrote from Savannah at
the end of 1788 to Tench Coxe: "I have been this year an adventurer, and
the first that has attempted on a large scale, in the article of cotton.
Several here as well as in Carolina have followed me and tried the
experiment. I shall raise about 5000 pounds in the seed from about eight
acres of land, and the next year I expect to plant from fifty to one
hundred acres."[4]

[Footnote 3: Letter of Thomas Spaulding, Sapelo Island, Georgia, Jan. 20,
1844, to W.B. Scabrook, in J.A. Turner, ed., _The Cotton Planter's Manual_
(New York, 1857), pp. 280-286.]

[Footnote 4: E.J. Donnell, _Chronological and Statistical History of
Cotton_ (New York, 1872), p. 45.]

The first success in South Carolina appears to have been attained by
William Elliott, on Hilton Head near Beaufort, in 1790. He bought five and
a half bushels of seed in Charleston at 14s per bushel, and sold his crop
at 10-1/2d per pound. In the next year John Screven of St. Luke's parish
planted thirty or forty acres, and sold his yield at from 1s. 2d. to 1s.
6d. sterling per pound. Many other planters on the islands and the adjacent
mainland