Le coton

La culture du coton

Dans son histoire de l’industrie du coton (1835), Edward Baines présente les conditions du sol propices à une bonne culture :

‘The cotton plant, in all its varieties ⁵¹⁹, requires a dry and sandy soil. It (...) will grow where the soil is too poor to produce any other valuable crop. A mixture of siliceous and argillaceous earth is the most desirable, with a preponderance of the former (...) so little congeniality has it for moisture, that a wet season is destructive to the crops. Of the several diseases to which cotton os subject, and which make the crop a precarious one, the most fatal is the blight produced by wetness at the roots (1966 : 293-94). ’

Baines donne également un aperçu des différentes étapes de la pousse :

‘The seed is planted in March, April, and May; and the cotton is gathered by hand, within a few days after the opening of the pods, in August, September, and October. In America, it is planted in rows five feet asunder, and in holes eighteen inches apart, , in each of which several seeds are deposited: careful weeding of the ground si necessary, and the plants require to be gradually thinned, so as ultimately to leave only one or two for each hole; they are also twice pruned, by nipping off the end of the branches, in order to make them put out more branches, and yield a large quantity of blossom and fruit (1966 : 288). ’

Devant tant de soins nécessaires à une bonne récolte, on comprendra l’attention portée à cette culture par les planteurs et les exigences requises des esclaves affectés à cette besogne. On comprendra également les dangers liés au climat dont dépendait en grande partie une bonne récolte, d’autant que le Tennessee était la limite septentrionale de cette culture. Walker écrit : ‘“Frequently late frosts, rains, and droughts meant considerable loss to the cotton crops (...) The late frosts of Middle Tennessee were a great hazard to the growing of cotton”’ (1943 : 22). Jackson mentionnait de telles catastrophes en mai 1834 : ‘“The news papers and the letters all state that a destructive frost fell on the 24, 25, and 26th of april that has killed the cotton”’ (Bassett, V : 266). En effet, la rigueur relative du climat différait négativement de l’atmosphère déjà sub-tropicale de l’Alabama ou du Mississippi ⁵²⁰ (Cashin, 1991 : 65).