Cotton
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
Researchers don't know exactly how much cotton was cultivated at Monticello. Thomas Jefferson made plans to cultivate it and bought seed, but there is little record on how much was planted and how well it did. By 1809, Virginia as a state had given up growing cotton on a large scale. The growing season was just too short as compared to the deeper South. It became quite expensive to buy cotton by this point as the U.S. stopped importing cotton, and that in part helped raise the price. Jefferson mainly focused on cotton production for home manufacture.
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Primary Source References-Memorandum Books
1 October 1769.' Pd. Mrs. Agey's waggoner for bringg. cotton 4/.
16 December 1769. Gave Dan. Hutchings (master of the packet) to buy 10. lb. of cotton W. Indain 20/.
2 January 1770. Gave Mrs. Bolling to buy cotton & pay spinng. 31/.
16 December 1774.' (Elk Hill) Bought 3 lb. cotton in the seed of Branford for which I pd. him 1/ & still owe 3 3/4 d.
18 December 1774. Pd. Branford in full for cotton & chickens 1/3.
24 December 1774. (Elk Hill) Pd. old York in full for cotton 3/6. Pd. Cuffy for cotton 2/3.
1775. (In Misc. Memoranda section) A pint of cotton seed contains of good seeds 900. Consequently a bushel will contain 57600. Put 4. in a hill and it will plant hills 14400. If hills are 2. f. apart an acre will contain abt. 11025. So that a bushel of seed will plan 1 1/3 acres.
4 April 1775. (Elk Hill) Gave old York to pay for 3 lb. cotton he bought and 2 lb. more he is to bring from one of Skelton's negroes 7/6.
9 April 1775. (Elk Hill) Pd. Skelton's Sam for cotton 2/9.
20 September 1775. Sent my mother...4 lb. of picked cotton which charge.
6 May 1796. Pd. for 3 lb. cotton 7/1.
29 April 1796. E.Bacon to pay for cotton seed 8.D. returned.
Primary Source References-Jefferson's Correspondence
27 January 1783. Jefferson's statement of losses to the British at His Cumberland plantations in 1781. "130. lb. of cotton" [1]
10 July 1806. (Jefferson to James Bowdoin) "Of tobacco, not half a crop has been planted for want of rain; and even this half, with cotton and Indian corn, has yet many chances to run." [2]
15 July 1808. (Jefferson to Monsieur Lasteyrie) "The limits within which the cotton plant is worth cultivating in the United States are the Rappahannock river to the north, and the first mountains to the west. And even from the Rappahannock to the Roanoke, we only cultivate for family use, as it cannot there be afforded at market in competition with that of the more Southern region. The Mississippi country, also within the same latitudes, admits the culture of cotton."[3]
21 January 1812. (Jefferson to John Adams) "We consider a sheep for every person in the family as sufficient to clothe it, in addition to the cotton, hemp, and flax which we raise ourselves."[4]
12 January 1813. (Jefferson to James Ronaldson) "But we must acknowledge their [Southern fellow citizens] services in furnishing us an abundance of cotton, a substitute for silk, flax and hemp."[5]
20 March 1818. (Jefferson to Bernard Peyton) "The impossibility of buying raw cotton obliges me to recur to the cultivating it myself. So much has it got out of practice that even the seed is lost in this part of the country. Could you possibly buy me a sack or barrel of about 5 bushels?"[6]
Footnotes
Further Sources
- Betts, Farm Book,161-165, 247-251, and 464-495.
- Betts, Garden Book.
- McEwan, Barbara. Thomas Jefferson, Farmer]. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1991.
