[Southlander]

TexasReb, I wonder how old your figures are? The last couple of years, we've seen a LOT of cotton fields converted to corn. And a lot of unhappy farmers whose corn crop was lost to drought. Maybe they'll go back to cotton, now. Of course, one of the biggest fields around here will be plowed up in June for a Bass Pro Shop!!

Originally Posted by marmac

I saw pictures of monster cotton harvesting machines and big round bales of cotton that my brother-in -law took while in California. I read in farm magazines that cotton and rice farmers got hit the hardest by competing on a world wide basis.

Our farmers have those machines...they're air-conditioned and have CD players, cost $250,000 each and are only used a few weeks out of the year!

Our farmers make big "blocks" of cotton. Compressors are pulled into the field to create the "blocks," which are as big as railroad cars. They're topped with plastic and left in the field until they're picked up and carried to the gin.

Used to be, every little community had a cotton gin. It was a community and social center, sort of, at least in the fall. Our town, Decatur, had 4 or 5, with, oh, probably 15 or 20 within 25 miles of here. Now I can only think of 2 operating gins, both in neighboring counties. They're more efficient now and can process more. One of the useful byproducts of cotton is the oil, made from pressing seeds, and smelled a lot like bacon. You'd know it was autumn when the whole town smelled like breakfast!

[marmac]

another valuable by product is cottonseed.

It is an excellent ingredient added to dairy cows rations

it is one of the few ingredients available that provides fiber and has good feed value.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by marmac

Although my magazine is a little old--------it lists
Texas
California
Mississippi

as the three leading states in growing cotton. Those three account for over half of all the cotton in the US.

California has always surprised me a bit as being such a large producer. Arizona as well. Those states were never part of the old "Southern Cotton Belt" (which stretched from North Carolina into Texas)...but I guess with irrigation techniques and all, the climate is basically condusive to grow it.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by Southlander

TexasReb, I wonder how old your figures are? The last couple of years, we've seen a LOT of cotton fields converted to corn. And a lot of unhappy farmers whose corn crop was lost to drought. Maybe they'll go back to cotton, now. Of course, one of the biggest fields around here will be plowed up in June for a Bass Pro Shop!!

By the way, sorry for the duplication of posts above!

Anyway, Southlander? According to the source (and I really just now noticed it too), it was from 1982. That IS quite a while ago! LOL

I wouldn't doubt that the ratios might still be proportional between the various Southern states, but you are probably right that the ratio to all farms to cotton farms might have dropped.

[FlourChild]

It will be interesting to see what happens to cotton as an agricultural product/industry as the corn market (for ethanol) continues to heat up. I've also heard that California is facing a hard choice between using its relatively scarce (relative, that is, to population) water resources for agriculture, or for supporting its rather huge numbers of citizens. There was an article awhile back in which some scientists from UAH theorized that California, by irrigating so well, took away a lot of Alabama's--and the whole southeast's--agricultural economic base, and that California should (in practical terms, not moral or legal) now divert all that water for use by its urban population, thus allowing the SE to regain more of its agriculture.

That made sense in my head; don't know if it reads intelligibly or not. All this talk of cotton and peanuts is making me even more homesick for N Alabama. Not too much cotton growing around Albany.

[southernnaturelover]

Oh goodness. You can see cotton and peanut fields EVERYWHERE here where I live. I own an old house in the country that hasn't been lived in for several years. I went out there a few weeks ago to do some work on it and squirrels (or rats) had packed the soffits around the top of the house completely full with peanuts from the fields. I've grown up around cotton all my life so I guess it's no big deal to me.

[Frankie117]

I'm a native to the Wiregrass region of the state, peanuts are the big deal down there. The funny thing about it is I'm not all that impressed by cotton in a field...when you are around it enough, it's just another aspect of the landscape like trees and dirt. California did not kill off Southern cotton by the way -- India and Egypt did.

[kevin_1975]

The Wiregrass region of Alabama does have a lot of cotton and peanuts. My home county, Coffee still has a lot of cotton.

[littlelou]

I am fascinated with cotton plants too and have wondered about stopping at a cotton farm and asking the farmer for a few seeds. think I'll try it, maybe even put an envelope with my address and postage in my car and ask him if he'd drop some in the envelope and mail me some next planting season.... just thinking out loud. My great-nieces would be interested too.

[contented]

what a great thread.........luved every entry!