The Cotton Fields of South Georgia

In the Fall each year we have the great pleasure of traveling through South Georgia on our way to North Carolina to visit our mountain cabin in hopes of seeing the beautiful Fall leaves. We also traveled to Lexington, Kentucky to visit one of our daughters and her family.  Our home in Tallahassee, Florida is only 9 miles away from the Georgia State Line.  Driving north from home in no time at all we find ourselves in the heart of cotton growing country.

I have shared photos of the cotton fields of South Georgia on previous blogposts, but each time I see these beautiful snowy white fields as far as the eye can see I must grab my camera to capture these beautiful sights.

A former slave from the mid 1800s, Solomon Northup, is said to have admired these beautiful cotton fields and he left us with this quote:  "There are few sights more pleasant to the eye than a wide cotton field when it is in bloom.  It presents an appearance of purity,  like an immaculate expanse of light, or new-fallen snow."

As we drove along, my sweet husband began to reminisce about his cotton picking days in his small South Georgia home town of Moultrie, Georgia, which is only about an hours drive from our home in Tallahassee.  

He recalls that by the end of his third grade in school, during Summertime, it was his job to pick cotton.  He continued to pick cotton each Summer for the next four years.  He said he and his cousins were given a large sack for collecting the cotton.  They began in the fields as the sun was coming up,  and they worked to dark picking the cotton.  He said, on a good day he could pick about 100 pounds of cotton.  

He also recalls that the cotton picking time had special memories because he and his cousins would work picking the cotton and at the same time all of them together would sing their favorite old country gospel songs that they loved.  

He talks about how the bolls that held the cotton had sharp spurs and how difficult it was to pick all of the cotton without hurting his hands.

I recently read a quote by Glenn Campbell that said: "Picking a guitar is a lot easier than picking cotton."

Thank goodness most cotton farmers have cotton picking machines 

these days and do not have to pick by hand.

Mr. Google tells us that Georgia is the second largest cotton producing state with Texas being the largest.  Then comes Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, California, Missouri and South Carolina.

In 2017 the state of Georgia is estimated to have produced 2.9 million bales of cotton.

And as we drive on through Georgia and see miles and miles of cotton fields that is not hart to believe.

Mr. Google also tells us that the state of Georgia planted 1.29 million acres of cotton.  Wow!

It was a beautiful day with the blue skies and the clouds as white as the cotton.

We noticed what looked like a very old blue bird house on a post near one of the cotton fields.

And close to one of the cotton fields we saw this charming country home
with the cute pumpkin decoration on the front door.

We could not resist breaking off a couple of stalks of the beautiful cotton to take with us to Lexington.

As you can see stalks of cotton make a very pretty Fall bouquet.

Thank you for visiting and walking through the cotton fields of South Georgia with us.

Wishing you blessed days and a happy weekend wherever you may be.