f the sides of the box were built rigidly, but the lower sides were
hinged at the bottom, and the lid was a block sliding up and down according
as a great screw from above was turned to left or right. The screw,
sometimes of cast iron but preferably of wood as being less liable to break
under strain without warning, worked through a block mortised into a timber
frame above the box, and at its upper end it supported two gaunt beams
which sloped downward and outward to a horse path encircling the whole.
A cupola roof was generally built on the revolving apex to give a slight
shelter to the apparatus; and in some cases a second roof, with the screw
penetrating its peak, was built near enough the ground to escape the whirl
of the arms. When the contents of the lint room were sufficient for a bale,
a strip of bagging was laid upon the floor of the press and another was
attached to the face of the raised lid; the sides of the press were then
made fast, and the box was filled with cotton. The draught animals at the
beam ends were then driven round the path until the descent of the lid
packed the lint firmly; whereupon the sides were lowered, the edges of the
bagging drawn into place, ropes were passed through transverse slots in
the lid and floor and tied round the bale in its bagging, the pressure
was released, and the bale was ready for market. Between 1820 and 1860
improvements in the apparatus promoted an increase in the average weight
of the bales from 250 to 400 pounds; while in still more recent times the
replacement of horse power by steam and the substitution of iron ties for
rope have caused the average bale to be yet another hundredweight heavier.
The only other distinctive equipment for cotton harvesting comprised cloth
bags with shoulder straps, and baskets of three or four bushels capacity
woven of white-oak splits to contain the contents of the pickers' bags
until carried to the gin house to be weighed at the day's end.

Whether on a one-horse farm or a hundred-hand plantation, the essentials in
cotton growing were the same. In an average year a given force of laborers
could plant and cultivate about twice as much cotton as it could pick. The
acreage to be seeded in the staple was accordingly fixed by a calculation
of the harvesting capacity, and enough more land was put into other crops
to fill out the spare time of the hands in spring and summer. To this
effect it was customary to plant in corn, which required le