Operations were commonly on the basis of six or seven acres to the hand, half in cotton and the rest in corn and sweet potatoes.

In the swamps on the mainland into which this crop was afterwards extended, the use of the plow permitted the doubling of the area per hand; but the product of the swamp lands was apparently never of the first grade.
The fields were furrowed at five-foot intervals during the winter, bedded in early spring, planted in late April or early May, cultivated until the end of July, and harvested from September to December.

The bolls opened but narrowly and the fields had to be reaped frequently to save the precious lint from damage by the weather.

Accordingly the pickers are said to have averaged no more than twenty-five pounds a day.

The preparation for market required the greatest painstaking of all.