Just wondering how many old timers on here ever chopped cotton? I chopped cotton in the last 70's on my uncle's farm in southern Arkansas. Being 8 yrs old, it sucked! Found a bucket full of arrowheads though........

Yes, when I was a kid.

No, but I hear it's a great way to ditch your old fingerprints and get new ones!!

`late 60s early 70s

I never picked cotton
But my mother did and my brother did
And my sister did and my daddy died young
Workin' in the coal mine


(Actually it was my grandmother did and her brother did growing up in Arkansas)

😂😂😂😂 Good ole Johnny. He will never be matched.
Momma would rock me in the cradle in the old cotton fields down home!

No, but a lot of tabacco .

We called it hoeing cotton. And yes I hoed many a row in the hot summer sun as a kid.

Yep in the 70's for me too....keep your hoe sharp...

Still do some these days.

Seems that the guy that farms the home place does a darn good job of staying on top of the weeds.

picking cotton and chopping cotton are two different things have done both, picked watermelons also.

Yep. What folks call chopping cotton is hoeing the weeds out of the rows of cotton.

Chopping cotton and hoeing cotton are two different things. Chopping cotton is done first.... that is when you thin the plants. Hoeing cotton is getting the weeds out. You only chop cotton once, but you usually had to hoe the cotton at least twice and sometimes 3 times. Picked cotton by hand, too.

I did like to run the stripper late at night with a brite moon.

I would turn off the lights and still be able to run the rows with no problems.

Started with a yellow cab 484,then green cab484.

But when the 7445 with a cleaner came out it was fantastic.that machine could run real fast and eat the cotton without problems.

We started around 9 o'clock or so then quit sometimes around 1 or 2 in the morning.

Dont need a stripper when you pick by hand....

We never did that in N. Tx dryland Cotton farming. Rainfall was so scarce that we never had to worry about “thinning the plants”. But the weeds here grow big with little or no rainfall whatsoever. So we were always hoeing rows of cotton.
Thank God we never had to pick cotton, though. Dad used to tell ya how good we had it, since he had to pick cotton as a kid. 🤠

I wouldn't know about cotton farming in Tx., but in N. La. granddad planted the cotton close so he could make sure he got a good stand. Then when the plants were a couple inches tall we had to thin it or chop the cotton. After that, we had to hoe the cotton, remove the weeds, a couple of times. By then the cotton was tall enough that when he plowed the middles, he'd throw dirt onto the row and cover any grass. I remember one year Granddad planted some cotton that got close to 6' tall. Dont know what kind it was, but he only planted that variety one time. Mostly the cotton was 3'-4' tall.

Both hoed and picked cotton as a kid. Hoed corn for 8 cents a row. Long rows, sometimes with morning glory vines.

Yup. late 60s. Fisher County.

I ran thru a cotton field once and that was a big mistake. Got cotton burrs stuck everywhere.

Fisher County, TX ???

Not too far from the Ranch, as the crow flies.

I’ve ate at the DQ there quiet a bit. It’s one of the good ones. 🤠

yes, and picked tobacco as well. And tossed hay bails.

Did all that during the summer when I was a kid, helping my grandfather, the money I made was used for school clothes.

Soon as I saw the title I was hoping no one would beat me too it!
He'll no! Don't grow it here.

No but I bucked a azz load of hay and pitched a lot of manure. They make hay a lot different now than back then.

Wait a minute, I thought only Black people were abused out in the cotton fields...........Or are you guys all Black and just never told me.....





I helped Grandpa harvest cherries every summer but never seen a dime, never minded it though as we always had fun.

This is the spirit that built America!

I haven't but my wife did. She was a cotton hoer. Said when she started feeling sorry for herself she would look over and see her 7 year old brother in the next row. She was 9. And the planter's kids she was working for had their young children out there with them.

No, not cotton country in Iowa.

I recall seeing a planter ad that said the planter was so accurate costly hand thinning was unnecessary.

When them cotton balls get rotten, you can’t pick very much cotton!!!

Yessir...I hoed a bit of cotton in the 70s outside Lubbock, TX and in southern OK just north of Wichita Falls, TX.

Reckon I am a member of a dwindling club.

All I ever did was toss hay bales. All mom’s side of the family messed with the cotton. And I’m damn glad I didn’t have to do any of that.

Dad thrashed peanuts by hand.

Haven’t chopped cotton but did do a stint of hoeing or cotton chipping as we call it in Australia. Certainly a character building way to earn a few dollars.

No cotton in the Rocky's of N.W. Colorado, but i pulled weeds and hoed in the garden, milked the cows, twice a day before and after school. Rio7

Mom’s dad had a whole passle of aunts, uncles, and cousins from up around Searcy Arkansas that would come down every year to pick cotton in central Texas. I took momma and her two sisters up to Searcy for a family reunion back in like 2004. Met a cousin that just happened to be born down here during one of those picking seasons.

Rotan, TX

My maternal great grandfathers both farmed near.

One had a dry goods store in town and a lumberyard. HL Davis & Sons

Back in the day (late '50's and early 60's) this is the way farming and school co-existed.

You'd go to school the first day and get registered. Then the farm kids would not attend school for the first six weeks and part of the second six weeks, except for rainy days. You were busy on the farm. Usually when you did get back to school, you couldn't miss another day for the rest of the 1st semester or you would fail. Teachers and principles would usually look the other way, if you did miss some more days, but you had to do all your schoolwork, and it couldn't be too many more days.

In the spring, the month of May didn't exist at school. You were busy on the farm again.

All the city kids complained about school...... All the farm kids thought it was a vacation.

Most of us have it so soft today.

The only thing I've ever had to do with cotton was to feed the seeds to dairy cattle. Often times wondered where it all came from and what it took to get it loaded on that rail car.

Just about anyone could chop or hoe cotton, but when it came picking time, that's when you separated the 'men from the boys', so to speak. I was just a kid, and only picked a few times, so I never was good at it. I've seen and heard of people picking a bale and more in a day. That's right at 500 lbs. To do that, you had to be in good cotton, have fast hands, and a strong back. The avg. person picked about 350ish lbs in a day.

I hauled a lot of hay, 10 cents a bail, stacked in the barn. That’s ten cents split 3 ways. We could make enough to take our girlfriends out on Saturday night.

I thought I was rich as a 13 year old (1993), 7 cents a bale (my share), hauling for a cousin. His truck, him, and another neighbor kid. Stacking in the hay barn wasn't bad, but stacking in the hayloft was miserable. 1,000-1,200 bails a day was our norm. Hauled some for another guy in town, just him and I, 12 cents a bale. Big time money.

No but I wish our forefathers had picked their own damn cotton….

We did not get paid to toss and stack hay. We were expected to do it. Family.

The vast majority of mine did!!!

Picked cotton, chopped cotton, hoed cotton. Hauled baled hay, put up loose hay with a pitch fork, and mowed and raked hay with a team of mules. miles

Bustin’ them clods with his own bar feet! 😁.

That mule, old Rivers, and Miles!

Jokin’ with ya dis mornin’ !

If that ain't country....it'll hairlip the Pope.

One of the fun things I did was dehorn dairy cows. Got coved up in blood

my dad and his siblings chopped, hoed and picked. i knew kids who did. dad told me whatever i chose to make a living, make sure it had nothing to do with cotton. i took him at his word ...

I went to Taco Bell and burned some cotton a couple hrs later

You guys are all liars. Nobody ever had to pick cotton but black slaves. You white boys just drove around in fancy cars and drank beer. Entitled!

No cotton, all tobacco. And that monster garden my mother forced us all to participate in as well.

I dreaded the garden much more when it came to weeds. Mom won't having any slackers in her garden.

Yep.
All 3.

ETA:
A good friend told me he went to the city and got a good job in a paper mill, wrote home and told his momma about it and asked her to send him his tools.

4 days later a hoe, jug of water and a tote sack arrived at the boarding house for him.

Is it any different than hoeing onions, or sugar beets, or hoeing corrugations in irrigated silage corn?

Use to work for a fellow that would buy from 500-1000 calves every fall and put them on rye grass. All of them had to be 'run thru the pens'. That meant shots, dehorn, and bull calves were cut. Usually a 3 man crew and you did this 2-3 days a week, for a month or two. We would swap jobs and dehorning was definitely the worse. Cut the horns and blood would spurt all over you, from head to toe.

Fun..... not so sure about that!

There was no cotton or tobacco where I grew up. But we had corn.
My dad grew up without a corn picker so he had to pick corn by hand. But, about everybody did it that way until after WWII. When we came along and moved to a farm in 1962 we had to hand pick corn from the stocks in the field. We put the ears in a wagon and would run them through the hammer mill or feed the cows and pigs whole corn. The neighbors had a corn picker so dad contracted with them to pick it and we put it in a corn crib. We would fill the wagon from the corn crib and run it through a hammer mill for the cows feed.

I came home from the Army in 1976 and the corn crib, barn, hammer mill and the feed shed were all gone. Dad was going to put up a big loafing shed and buy milled corn from the feed and grain and feed it out in a cattle lot and run the cows in the pasture when it wasn't too dry or too cold. Unfortunately he passed from a heart attack in 1978 and never got the chance.

kwg

Yes, on my maternal grandfather's farm outside Batesville, Arkansas. Worked hay fields tossing bales in north central Arkansas. Taught me I did not want to be a farmer.

L.W.

No, but it's says something about those who did. Chopping just makes more weeds anyway.

I spent most the summers in the 1990’s sand fighting, hoeing and spraying Johnson grass. Roundup ready cotton changed some of that, but a lot of the weeds have developed a resistance and they are back to hoeing again.

Farm was near McCaulley, "Ranch" about halfway between Rotan and Hamlin.

Still own a piece of the ranch, planning to build a cabin there soon.

I remember you telling me that in another thread, now.
Our Ranch is not too far north of Hamlin.
Old Glory area.

I haven't read the whole thread, so sorry if this has been covered. I have never really known what "chopping" cotton means. Help please.

I have a little. My dad made me do it and also pick a little cotton in Roswell New Mexico. He did it just to show me and my younger brother what it was like. What I did chop a lot off was a 10 acre irrigated patch of Chiles we had the last year (1974) we lived there.

Weeding the cotton with a hoe.

One of my Dad's favorite sayings is: "I was picking cotton with the rest of the Naggers"

Thanks.
Sounds a lot like "walking beans" up here - for us it was mostly pulling weeds, but sometimes we used hoes, hooks, or corn knives. (Still have the scar on my left index finger from careless use of the last.)

When I was a little bitty baby.

LOL

Weeding the cotton with a hoe.

No.....

Chopping cotton and hoeing cotton are two different things. Chopping cotton is done first.... that is when you thin the plants. Hoeing cotton is getting the weeds out. You only chop cotton once, but you usually had to hoe the cotton at least twice and sometimes 3 times. Picked cotton by hand, too.

If you want to see some true Civil Engineering work, drive up Hwy 70 from Sweetwater to Snyder right at cotton planting time and see how those farmers have cultivated the hills.

Dirt art.

Lots of kin out there. Rule to Rochester. I’ve played a lot of dances and parties at Sons of Hermann in Old Glory.

I walked beans—picked rocks—blocked beets and detasseled corn. Scraped my share of scalded hogs also.
When I came to Canada spent some time planting black Spruce—overhauling whitefish nets and filleting perch.
Skinned and processed 150 to 160 moose most years—with not a lot of help. My wife would wrap sometimes.

To restate what was said earlier: Chopping cotton is done the first time you are in the field. There was a continuous row of cotton and you needed only 2 to 3 plants every 6 inches or so. (about the width of a hoe). So, you would chop out the excess plants and any weeds that were there. Pull dirt up around the stems to make them stand tall. When you were not doing it for family, pay was 50 cents an hour. A days work would buy a nice shirt for school. Only way we had to pay for clothes when I grew up.

After chopping cotton, you might hoe it another 2 or 3 times before it was laid by (plowed with dirt thrown up around the bottom stems) until harvest. We would on average, wear out a hoe each per year. It would be sharpened before starting in the morning and again at lunch. Sharpening was my job too. Guess I got pretty good at it. Had a community garden in Atlanta in my 20's and the city folks would come just to watch me hoe. They could not do anything with a hoe and I never had to bend down to remove weeds, etc....

In the fall, school would close for a 6 week, "cotton picking vacation". Yeah, some vacation. Saw a LOT of cotton hand picked but 200 pounds per day was considered excellent. Most folks did 150 or so. Picked in either a 6 foot or 7 1/2 foot bag. 7 1/2 foot bag, packed full would weigh around 40 to 50 pounds. Took 800 or so pounds to make a bale. Pay was 2 to 3 cents per pound. I got paid a little extra for weighing everyone's cotton and then taking it to the gin. When the bolls got rotten (as stated in the song) it was very difficult to pick. BUT, you could pull the bolls, with the cotton still inside. Not preferred, as the farmer got paid less but allowed you to harvest it later in the season. Weights here would be higher but it was the devil on your hands, even with gloves.

So yeah. I have chopped cotton. Taught me the value of hard work. It also taught me that I never wanted to be a farmer.

I stand corrected, just shows you how much I did. We had to do the same thinning with chile peppers also. I remember trying to get the roots from Johnson grass was tough. The roots were like cancer.

Not much left of Old Glory and Sagerton. At least Rule has a Convenience Store. 🤠

I also irrigated cotton, alfalfa and chile peppers. The cotton and chile peppers required a bent metal pipe to siphon the water from the irrigation ditch to the row. The alfalfa you used a tarp or big metal stop like a giant fat cleaver to stop the water and dig a opening to allow the water to flood the field. you stared on the high side and worked you way lower increments.

Hoed cotton and picked backer early on.

Lesson learned!

Roy Clark went by Johnny?

My parents were not schit kicking hillbillies.

I hope this answers the question.

I grew up on a cotton farm, chopped a lot of it until the advent of Treflan. We'd chop all summer long. I bet I can still get a hoe razor-sharp with a mill-bastard file.

Only cotton I ever picked or pulled (there's a difference) was as a little kid playing in the fields; mechanical cotton strippers came in just in time to save me from that joy. Older sisters and everyone else in the family pulled a lot. Heck, I bet Grandma and Grandpa had dad dragging a sack by the time he was 5.

But I've forked a bunch back in the trailers so more would fit in and I've worked in gins before they became automated.

My Mom grew up in Stamford and I believe she told me once that Rick Perry was from Old Glory. She knew the family.

Mom was from Taylor.

^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^
When in college, I graduated to room, board, a tank of gas for m pickup, and $40 a week.
I've never been as wealthy since!

Only difference was that I was not bare footed. miles

Devol or Randelett ?

Gov Perry was born in Haskell and raised in Paint Creek.
That’s about 25 miles east of Old Glory. My Mom new his parents pretty well.

That’s over by Austin. Nearly 200 miles south of here.

all my cousins on my mom's side of the family back then were migrant farmworkers. Pretty much all my cousins are successful people now Drs, nurses and stuff, that hard farm work made them want to do better. I only went and helped once in a while.

There was a local diner in the Haskell area started by a farmer’s kid that hated to hoe cotton.

He named it “The Hatohoe”

Pretty successful local food chain. He had 4 or 5 of them at one time. Sadly, they’re all gone now. It had damn good steak fingers and chocolate malts when we were kids.

Taylor is just north of me. LOT’s of cotton there. Black land prairie. Matter of fact, mom’s parents were from just north fo Taylor. Mamaw was from out between Davilla and Bartlett. And Jim (as my granddad was known) was from east of Granger. Right damn Middle of the cotton patch.

Randelett.

Yes sir! Paint Creek was what I was thinking of...not Old Glory. 👍🏻

Your Mom might know mine as she acquainted with them as well. Her (my Mom) parents owned Hinds Clothing in Stamford where she was raised.

Only asparagus for bit on Victoria Island, Sacramento Delta.

Ed, you’ll be shocked to know there are a bunch of Italian folks over in Robertson/Brazos County in the bottom land that are all cotton farmers. Around the little town of Mumford.

Yeah believe they arrived around 1900 or so.

Yep. I knew some old Italian folks in Bryan / College Station when I was going to TAMU. Mowed their yard. They said their families were early settlers their. Cotton farmers too.

Probably. Mom, Dad and Grandparents are all gone now.

Neal, they were all brought to Texas to farm by an Englishman names Mumford. He had speculated and bought a whole bunch of the bottom land. The town is named after him.

Ok! Any of your old cotton farmers know what this is?????

Chopped by coons

I grew up in Haskell. I think my dad used to ref 6 man football games in McCaulley. I know i went to 6 man games in Guthrie, O’brien, and Wienert mostly.

Ha, the liquor store in Sagerton would sell to us kids. Closed now too.

Weight from a cotton scale ???

Yep. Gone quite a while now.

No Neal. That is the old style clamp used on the bale of the cotton bale. That one came of the paddlewheeler Westfield. The Navy bought the Westfield from the Vanderbilts to haul confiscated cotton off of captured confederate blockade runners.
It was run aground on a sand bar new years 1863 in Galveston bay during the battle of Galveston. And it was blown up to keep it from falling into Confederate hands. Only problem was it exploded waaaaaay too early and took most of the crew with it.

They found 1000’s of these clamps in the remains that weren’t destroyed when Tex Historical commission and Tx A&M were doing the archaeological excavation of the wreck back about 2010 or so. Nobody knew what they were. Archaeologist started sending pics to all his pards. Son and his boss ended up with a pic. Son sent me one to ask if I knew what it was. Hell I didn’t know?? Fast forward. His boss went up to Lubbock to see his dad in nursing home. Beginning of dementia. In conversation he asked his dad if he had ever seen anything like this, and showed him pic. Without hesitation his dad said "it’s an old style cotton bale clamp!” Sho nuff, thats what it was. Old man spent many a day around cotton gins in the panhandle!!! Was a great story!!!

Quit chopping cotton when they got the planter rates figured out.

Made a huge difference in seed cost.

In case anyone is interested in the Westfield. Texas A&M was able to salvage the 9” Dahlgren gun!

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/westfield

Great history lesson Bob ! I’d have never guessed that’s what it was.

What I thought when I saw it. Not about the boat but the cotton bale. Looks like heavier metal than what was used when I was a kid. miles