Here©s Georgia! LIBRARIES - the Digital Library of Georgia

Velvet beans are a fa
vorite crop with many
Georgia farmers, and
their acreage is increas
ing yearly. A three-fold
ad-vantage is claimed for
these beans. They gather
nitrogen from the air,
and transfuse it into the
land. The Utter alone
is worth more than
#25 an acre to the land
as fertilizer. The husks
may be fed to stock
while the beans bring an
excellent price when
ground for oil and feed.
In many sections big
cotton crops are grown
without fertilizer other
than the bean little left
on the land the previous
year. Beans are threshed
in ordinary cotton gins.
Eastern farmers who
something new about
them in Georgia.
94
FACTS ABOUT GEORGIA
KING COTTON AT SOUTHEASTERN FAIR
necessary food products that Georgians now purchase from other
states.
Until Texas, with its tremendously greater area, began to grow
cotton extensively, Georgia led all other states in its production
now it is second.
Came Over With Oglethorfie
Cotton plants grown as a curiosity in the gardens of the Salz-
burgers at Ebenezer, from Egyptian seed one of them had brought
over, gave an idea of its commercial possibilities and its particular
adaptability to this climate, to Phillip Nutter, late of Chelsea,©
England, who planted it on a more extensive scale in 1734. James
Habersham is credited with having sent the first bale of lint to
England the following year. Richard Leak, who was then said to
be the largest cotton grower in the State, with a hundred acres
under cultivation, is on record in 1788 as urging the Philadelphia
Society to use its influence to encourage the growing of cotton.
No incentive was needed, however, after the invention of the
cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. This marvel of ingenuity was
able to separate the lint from the seed of a single bale of cotton
in a few hours, when theretofore a grown man could not do it