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FACTS ABOUT GEORGIA 97
nearly every county in the State, and yields abundantly when
properly fertilized and cultivated- The picking season begins in
August and lasts almost until Christmas, with October and
November as the heaviest months. After the cotton is ginned it
is baled in 500 pound bales, and if to be shipped it is compressed
at one of the central shipping points. Georgia's crop is either
exported, shipped to New England mills or made into fabrics at
the mills within the State. A few years ago it was estimated that
nearly one-half of Georgia's cultivated land was planted in cotton.
There are about 5,000 cotton gins in the State.
Fourth in Cotton Manufacture
In the manufacture of cotton goods Georgia stands fourth in
the Union, being excelled by Massachusetts, North Carolina and
South Carolina. In ante-bellum days it led all Southern states
in this respect. Although the first cotton factory had been built
in Georgia in 1811, the industry had its real beginning in 1828,
when the Georgia Factory was built at Whitehall, near Athens.
In 1900 there were only 68 cotton mils in the State, with a
capacity of 817,345 spindles and 19,398 looms. In 1915 there
were 165 mills with 2,214,850 active spindles and 42,773 looms,
using over 300,000,000 pounds of cotton, and producing fine
fabrics and yarns to the value of $63,794,145.
The bumper cotton crop in history was in 1911, when the total
product of the country was in round numbers 16,000,000 bales,
of which Georgia's portion was 2,768,627 bales. The average
price that year was 9.69 cents. The following year, with a reduc
tion of nearly a million bales in production, the average price was
12.05 cents. Up jumped Georgia's crop again to 2,316,601 bales
in 1913, and the price was fairly good, too, at 13.07, and the
farmers were correspondingly happy. Another bumper crop,
almost equal to that of 1911, was in the fields in 1914, when like
a thunderbolt came the European war, and the Kaiser's big guns
three thousand miles away on the Belgium frontier, knocked cot
ton down to seven cents, and caused Southern farmers to lose a
prospective income of $300,000,000.
State Combats Cotton's Foes
A few years ago half a bale of cotton to the acre was con
sidered a fair yield, but he is a poor farmer these days who does
not make a bale an acre, while two bales an acre is not uncommon
and even three have been grown in some instances. Insect pests
and plant diseases generally are vigorously combated by the State
Board of Entomology, which is under the direction of State
Entomologist E. Lee Worsham. It has done notable work in
Georgia farmers find
ready money for pea
nuts from, the oil mills,
a number of which have
been established in
South Georgia especially
for this crop, while
many cotton oil mills
have adapted their ma*
chinery to it. One large
land owner in Miller
County in 1916 planted
peanuts in every acre
formerly given over to
cotton, and has erected
an oil mill for his own
and his neighbors' crops.
There is also ready
money in porlc made
from peanuts gathered
by hogs, and the ex
perience of the Moultrie
PacTcing Company has
demonstrated that pea
nut-fed hogs produce
quite as superior lard
as corn-fed hogs.