Anyone Grow Cotton?

[ELOCN]

Just wondering if anyone here grows cotton.

[Old Vet]

I use to but when it became unprofitable I gave it up. Now if you have enough you can make it with the new machinery and the new seeds that are out their. I even grew it in a garden for my wife to make quilt out of but it cost me more than buying it does now.

[tyusclan]

There's a lot of Roundup-ready (or Bt) cotton grown in our area, but I don't grow any.

It's kinda funny how things come full circle. Years ago cotton was king down here, but the boll weevil got so bad no one could grow it. Farmers quit growing cotton and started growing peanuts. A small town in south Alabama (Enterprise), about an hour away from us, erected a monument to the boll weevil for bringing peanuts to the area. Now far more cotton is being grown again than peanuts.

[VOR.]

I grew up on a cotton farm. Nothing is as miserable as hoeing cotton when it is 105 degrees. We got out of the cotton business in 1996 and I've never missed it. I still go down to the cotton gin once a year to visit my friends and get a hat. That's as close as I get to cotton these days.

[ChristyACB]

On another note, it take a whole lot more room that one might suppose to grow enough cotton for enough cloth for one family. It's surprising how many plants that takes.

On the upside, they now have some great cotton that will grow already colored! They are buff, brown and even blue!

[Bearfootfarm]

Some years there are several hundred acres of cotton planted adjacent to my house.
The man who plants most of it told me there is no money in the fiber itself.
What money he makes comes from selling the seed.

Last year he blew up the engine in his picker, so he LOST money

[Old Vet]

Originally Posted by Bearfootfarm

Some years there are several hundred acres of cotton planted adjacent to my house.
The man who plants most of it told me there is no money in the fiber itself.
What money he makes comes from selling the seed.

Last year he blew up the engine in his picker, so he LOST money

There never was money in the fiber. You could make a little but the seed was where the money always was. When I got out all of the cotton gins kept the seed for ginning.

[ELOCN]

ACB, that is very interesting that colored cotton can be grown nowadays!

The reason I was wondering: I just finished a book about a family who grew cotton in Mississippi. The books is "Let the Circle Be Unbroken" by Mildred Taylor. They got 11 cents a pound for beautiful, clean, long-staple cotton in 1934 or 1935. In 1919, they had gotten 35 cents a pound.

[Bearfootfarm]

In 1919, they had gotten 35 cents a pound.

The average now is only about 58 cents