in the possession of W.H.Stovall, Stovall, Miss.] The picking required more perseverance than strength.

Dexterity was at a premium, but the labors of the slow, the youthful and the aged were all called into requisition.

When the fields were white with their fleece and each day might bring a storm to stop the harvesting, every boll picked might well be a boll saved from destruction.

Even the blacksmith was called from his forge and the farmer's children from school to bend their backs in the cotton rows.

The women and children picked steadily unless rains drove them in; the men picked as constantly except when the crop was fairly under control and some other task, such as breaking in the corn, called the whole gang for a day to another field or when the gin house crew had to clear the bins by working up their contents to make room for more seed cotton.
In the Piedmont where the yield was lighter the harvest was generally ended by December; but in the western belt, particularly when rains interrupted the work, it often extended far into the new year.