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High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta |
Author: Gerry Helferich
Published: 2007-06-05 |
List price: $25.00
Our price: $19.00
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As of: December 04th, 2008 01:28:23 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Who would ever think nonfiction about farming would be interesting?
High Cotton is a fine book, enjoyable and interesting reading. It is hard to believe a non-fiction description of cotton planting could be recreational reading but the author pulls off the feat; blending descriptions of the actual farming activities, flash-backs to the role of cotton in American history, the financial pressure planters deal with, to the after-work social activities of the planter. You feel you know the people, feel the hot sun, hear the equipment, ride in the truck and taste the cold beer when the planters take a day off.
History and the Present
Well written, and easy to read,. The historical data is incredible and more than I learned in school, but written to make one want to learn more and ask questions at the end.
Truly insighful book written with compassion and caring of the Delta people .
This book really has nothing to do with cotton
This is a powerful and moving book. Shallow people see it as a book about cotton farming or the tragedy of small farmers or as another opportunity to say stupid things about a place they have never
been. As a person who is offended by revisionist histories about the South, but who was deeply rooted in the Delta, I can tell you that if you think William Faulkner was a regional author, don't read it. It is gently written and tells a story of a good man in a struggle with fate and destiny. There is no villan, no antagonist to shoulder blame and guilt. This is not a story of Biblical Job or of virtue. It is however an account of people like anyone who run a small honest business, who strive and are defeated by circumstance. There is no one to hate and few to pity. I suppose some aberrant people will be offended by the racial issues they may read into it, but to assume there are any is a figment. Simply put, they aren't there unless not showing up for work after being stabbed with a pair of scissors is racist. Many people, liberal arts types, are not well enough educated to read this book with compassion. Pity them. The prose is relaxed, the historical facts well done and eclectic. The author has produced an American Classic comparable to Steinbeck and yes, Faulkner.
Interesting Insights into American Agriculture
"High Cotton" follows a Mississippi cotton farmer through a year of planting, growing, and harvesting cotton. Along the way readers learn of how new technology is used, decisions made about seed choices, herbicides and pesticides, etc., as well as considerable background about cotton in the U.S.
Even today, without slavery, the U.S. remains the world's leading exporter of cotton, claiming 40% of the world's market. Absent this single crop and its demand for slave labor, the past 200 years of American life would have been unimaginably different.
Today's growers no longer face the frequent threat of raging flood waters, and the federal government assumes much of the risk in growing cotton. Sophisticated machinery and potent chemicals perform work once done by humans - as a result, the Delta has been losing population for nearly a century. Even the cotton plant itself has been genetically modified to resist pests and herbicides.
In the Mississippi Delta (a misnomer - actually located in the state's Northwest corner), topsoil deposited over the millennia ranges up to 350 feet deep. The river itself descends an average 3" per mile, is over a mile wide in places, and up to 100 feet deep. The Mississippi carries 5 tons of silt per second to the Gulf of Mexico.
Helferich follows a relative (Zach) for a year as he cultivates 1,000 acres of cotton. Two bales/acre is the average in the Delta; Zach got 3 last year (1,250 lbs.) Some years suffer from too much rain, lowering the quality to a level where the cotton is only suitable for stuffing furniture. The average farm in the area now grows 4,000 acres. Prices are lower than 25 years ago, while costs have risen (land rents for an average of $100/acre). Cotton farmers are aided by $4 billion/year in federal subsidies - money that h as become the target of those wanting to reduce federal spending as well as foreign cotton sources.
"High Cotton" tells us that Zach can work his land now with 2 full-time and 2 part-time employees, instead of the dozens that would have been needed 100 years ago. His tractors provide 250 h.p., cost $125,000, weigh up to 10 tons, and have 15 forward gears. Zach's prior experience as a John Deere mechanic is invaluable in getting through a typical day.
A slave could pick an average of 200 lbs. of cotton/day, or alternatively provide 1 pound of cleaned cotton (seeds represent 2/3 of its initial weight). Then the new cotton gins with three workers and a horse could process 1,000 lbs./day, creating 300 lbs. of usable fiber. (Patent disputes left little net gain for inventor Eli Whitney; he later achieved economic success through standardizing and simplifying the manufacture of muskets - possibly an even greater long-term contribution to the U.S.)
Genetically-modified seed costs about $72/acre, and Zach can plant 150 acres/day, the depth depending on the type of soil and its moisture content.
Slaves generally represented the bulk of antebellum plantation-owners' wealth. "Roundup" replaces manual hoeing for weeds, and adds about $2/lb. to seed costs; while effective now, users worry about weed mutation rendering it increasingly ineffective. Today's herbicides break down faster and are applied at much lower rates - 1-2 ounces/acre, vs. a former 1-2 lbs.
Aerial spraying service costs $3/acre, and is used when the ground is waterlogged. The planes costs about $650,000, with $350,000 of that for its light, reliable turboprop engine. GPS systems are used to remember where they've already sprayed. Power lines are the greatest danger - pilots therefore stay close to home (familiar areas) and keep maps taped in the cockpit with power lines clearly marked. A plane can spray 2,000 acres/day.
Pivot irrigation systems cost up to $100,000 each; their diesel pump motors use about 5 gallons fuel/your, and the arms can take up to 100 hours to complete a circuit. These are used when a field doesn't have enough grade to use pipe irrigation.
About 15 different insects attack cotton, creating a need for $75-$100/acre in spraying and extra-cost bollworm resistant seeds. (Organic cotton produces only about half the yield.) DDT had been used to kill bollworms, but they evolved an immunity and required increasingly heavy doses - up to 2 lbs./week. Malathion now has proven effective and less dangerous, without an immunity developing (so far). Cotton farmers also spray their fields to reduce growth beyond a certain point, thereby limiting boll rot and bringing faster ripening.
Zach pays about $30/acre for an outside combine harvesting service - a month is required to finish Zach's fields. Each cotton module that is set out on a field weighs about 8,000 lbs. Cotton is graded prior to being sold. Most employees at the gin Zach uses are Mexicans - employers see them as more reliable and better workers.
"High Cotton" reports that more American textile jobs have been lost to automation than exported, but fails to also realize that if the automation had not occurred the jobs would have been exported anyway.
Only about 1/3 the 1929 U.S. land planted in cotton is still used for cotton today; however, the total production is about the same.
At the end of the year Zach ends up losing money on his cotton crop despite his expertise, hard work, and investments (though he makes up at least some of this through subsidies), decides to partner with his sons, and sells most of his equipment. It's a hard life.
 A little patronizing
I read every word of this interesting and timely book, which was chock full of information and history. I was excited to see the book come out as I believe our country is hurt by losing touch with its agrarian roots, and agricultural policy is being made now by people disconnected from production. Before I read it I had visions of sending it to policy makers and New Yorkers and others who need to know. I still may do that, but I was a bit disappointed that the author makes the farmer look like a bit of dolt.
Farmers who survive today, and there are far fewer then there were a generation ago, need to be among the shrewdest, most technologically and scientifically savvy managers of assets in the world, adept at managing people, machines, technology, balance sheets, politics, community relations, and the weather. This book goes a long way to showing the truth of that, but in my view falls short of its promise by making farmers look more stoic than smart.
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