lwiley
Loc: Los Banos, CA, USA
Getting close to mature boles. For those folks who can't get out to the farms.
Nice shots! Brings back the memory of picking cotton in Louisiana for my grandpa, about 75+ years back. Awful job. Nowadays, they squirt defoliant to get the leaves out of the way, and a giant machine does the plucking. Here’s a small patch in north Alabama ready, “ripe for the picking”.
AJFRED wrote:
Nice shots! Brings back the memory of picking cotton in Louisiana for my grandpa, about 75+ years back. Awful job. Nowadays, they squirt defoliant to get the leaves out of the way, and a giant machine does the plucking. Here’s a small patch in north Alabama ready, “ripe for the picking”.
Looks ready for picking.Great image. Love the old barn.
lwiley
Loc: Los Banos, CA, USA
AJFRED wrote:
Nice shots! Brings back the memory of picking cotton in Louisiana for my grandpa, about 75+ years back. Awful job. Nowadays, they squirt defoliant to get the leaves out of the way, and a giant machine does the plucking. Here’s a small patch in north Alabama ready, “ripe for the picking”.
Your photo brings back some hard painful memories, my relatives were Okies from the Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma area. I can still see the cold damp daybreak mornings, with dew hanging off of the dried crumbly leaves, the wet white cotton boles hanging from the dried split open boles with the razor sharp tips that tore at the skin of the hands of my mother, father, aunts, uncles, older siblings and cousins. Each of them trying to pick a couple hundred pounds per day. It is those memories that made me go to school, college and become an engineer.
I fear for the young people of today yelling for the ending of the use of fossil fuels and the resulting return to the days of hand picking of cotton in five, ten and twenty acre fields.
Hard memories indeed. I only picked once in my life, about 10 years old. I do remember the sharp edges of the bolls, and crawling along in the hot sun dragging that big sack. Looking down that row, and could not see the end of it. Picked all day, got the sack weighed, and collected 27 cents. Next day I asked for duty in the pasteurizing house near the milking barn.😁. And, like you, ended up in engineering school. Much easier on the hands, knees, and back!
We don't see much right around here but there is plenty on the roads to Charleston, SC.
lwiley wrote:
Getting close to mature boles. For those folks who can't get out to the farms.
Great photos. Can I assume then that a few weeks later people who pick cotton just walk by and pick socks, sweaters, gloves and so on?
Sorry. I could not help myself?
Dennis
Those are some cotton-pick'n good images!
Thank you for that post. I never knew cotton plant leaves looked like that.
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