The cotton-planting season in all the Southern States commences in April. The seed is sown in drills, a negro girl following the light plough which makes the furrow, and throwing the seed into the shallow trench as she moves along. A harrow follows to cover up the deposits, and the work of "planting" is completed. About two and a half bushels of seed are required for an acre of ground.

In a week or ten days the cotton is "up," when a small plough is run along the drills, throwing the earth from the tender plants. The next process is "scraping;" in other words, thinning out and earthing up the plants, so as to leave each in the centre of a little hill, some two feet distant from its nearest neighbors. The dexterity and accuracy with which this feat is accomplished are wonderful; and there are few spectacles more animated and picturesque than that of a hundred active field-hands flourishing their bright hoes among the young vegetation, each striving to outstrip the others in "hoeing out his row." Several ploughings and hoeings intervene between the first of May and the last of June.

In July the cotton fields burst into bloom, creaming the landscape with a sea of blossoms, the flower being very nearly of the same tint as the ultimate product in its unbleached state. The new beauty thus imparted to the scenery is, however, ephemeral. The blossoms unfold in the night, are in their full glory in the morning, and by noon have begun to fade. On the following day their cream-color has changed to a dull red, and before sunset the petals have fallen, leaving inclosed in the calyx the germ or "form" of the filamental fruit.

The cotton plant, in its progress towards maturity, is liable to the assaults of as many enemies as the young crocodile on the banks of the Nile; but among them all, the "army-worm" is the most destructive. This worm is produced from the eggs of a chocolate-colored moth of particularly harmless and demure appearance; but its name is legion, its ravages terrific. No one who has beheld an invasion of these caterpillars can ever forget it. Deep trenches are dug to arrest their progress, but these are soon filled up by the accumulating myriads; and onward move the living destroyers over the bodies of the buried masses. Huge logs are drawn through the trenches by yokes of oxen, and the multitudinous swarms crushed to a paste, of which the effluvium taints the air for miles; but still the incursion, if checked, is not arrested. When the planter sees the army-worm in his fields, he is ready to give up his crop in despair.

By the middle of July the "bolls" or "forms" begin to open; and the cotton fields, when viewed from a short distance, present the appearance of being covered with ridges of white surf. Toward the close of the month the picking season commences, and is continued without intermission until the Christmas holidays. Each field-hand is supplied with a basket and a bag. The basket is placed at the end of the cotton row, and the bag, as fast as filled, is emptied into it. It is a pleasant sight, on "the old plantation," to see the pickers returning at nightfall from their work, with their well-filled baskets picturesquely poised upon their woolly heads. Falling into line with the stoutest in the van, they move along through the twilight, too tired to talk or sing, anxious only to deposit their store in the packing-house, and retire to their "quarters" to rest. A first-rate hand will pick from three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds of cotton per day.

The next process is the "ginning," or separation of the cotton from the seeds. The invention of the cotton-gin by Eli Whitney, a New England youth, in 1793, marked a new epoch in the cotton trade, and at once more than quadrupled the value of the article as a national staple. Arkwright had already introduced the spinning-frame, and through the genial influence of these two great inventions, a pound of cotton, formerly spun tediously by hand into a thread of five hundred feet, was lengthened into a filament of one hundred and fifty miles; and the value of our cotton exports was increased in sixty years from fifty thousand to one hundred and twelve millions of dollars!

After the "ginning" comes the "baling" of the cotton, which ends the labor bestowed upon it on the plantation. In this process powerful screw-presses are employed. The cotton is inclosed in Kentucky bagging, and the contents of each bale are compressed by the screw almost to the solidity of stone. The cotton is now ready for market.

Toward the close of the packing season there are jolly times on the plantation. Fox-hunting and racing are the order of the day. The Southern planter, like the "fine old English gentleman," opens house to all, and all goes "merry as a marriage bell." Sambo rubs up his old musket, and is out after the ducks, while Dinah's shining face wears an extra gloss in anticipation of the holidays. Throughout the holidays there is high festival in the negro quarters. "The shovel and the hoe" are laid down, and the fiddle is continually going. So ends the cotton season.