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. [Illustration] 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! [Illustration: PACKING PRESS.] 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. [Illustration] 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. Shipment on the Mississippi.