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GEOBGIA AND GEOKGIANS 373
tively recent times there were so many difficulties in the way of utilizing
the plant with profit that its effect was hardly felt upon the industrial
arts. It was first necessary to separate the lint from the seed, then to
spin the fiber into thread, and then to weave the thread into cloth. Says
an economic writer:* "All of these operations a hundred and fifty
years ago were performed by hand, but in the eighteenth century Eng
lish inventors made machines to do the spinning and weaving, with the
result that one man could turn out as much cloth as had a hundred with
the old hand methods. These inventions naturally created a great de
mand for cotton, but the fact that a sMllful worker could remove the
seed from less than a dozen pounds of cotton in a day stood in the way
of further development. Several devices were invented to overcome
this difficulty, but it was reserved for a young man named Eli Whitney
to perfect the simple and efficient machine which is now used. This
invention revolutionized the economic history of Georgia and the other
Southern States."
To separate the lint from the seed, in the case of sea-island cotton,
was comparatively an easy matter, due to its long staple; but the culti
vation of sea-island cotton was restricted to the sea-coast. It could not
be grown on the uplands, where a short-staple variety of cotton was
produced. For some time there had been in existence a machine for
cleaning the long-staple cotton, but the short-staple or upland cotton
had to be separated entirely by hand. This process was slow and tedious.
It required a negro's entire time for a whole day to separate one pound
of upland cotton. "Where a large crop was planted, therefore, it became
a serious proposition to get it ready for the market, requiring more
hands to separate it under the shed than to gather it in the field. As a
result, there was little profit to be realized from the cotton crop, down
to the beginning of the last century; and even as late as 1791 only 399
bales of cotton were exported from all the United States.! The old
spinning wheel played a fundamentally useful part in developing the
cotton industry, but without some device for separating the lint from the
seed, cotton could never have come to its coronation. It could never
have been called king. To Eli Whitney's invention, therefore, cotton-
owes its seat of honor among the sceptered royalties.
One of the original cotton gins invented by Eli Whitney was for
years in the possession of Judge Garnett Andrews, of Washington,
Georgia. The old relic was a gift to the owner from Gov. Matthew
Talbot, on whose extensive plantation, near Washington, not far from the
present site of Smyrna Church, the first gin house in Upper Georgia, if
not in the entire state, was erected. The old building still survives, in
a fair state of preservation, though as late as 1903 it was used as a
negro house. Miss Eliza F. Andrews, his daughter, retains the most
vivid recollections of the old gin. During her girlhood days it occupied
a place in the attic of the family homestead in Washington and many
an hour was spent by her in the company of this quaint heirloom, when
rainy weather kept the children indoors. The gin was eventually lost
at an agricultural fair in Augusta, Georgia. The story told by Miss
* "History of Georgia," B. P. Brooks, p. 211.
t '' History of Georgia," L. B. Evans, p. 139.