Last updated: November 20, 2021
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Sign-Cash Crops
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Cash Crops
This field is a small part of several hundred acres that earned a living for the Carters and the other families who lived here. Like his neighbors throughout southwest Georgia, Earl Carter mixed his plantings of cotton, corn, watermelons, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, hoping for a good price when it came time to haul the harvest to the railhead or the cotton gin. Sugar cane grown here was crushed, then boiled down for syrup. Mr. Earl sold his “Plains Maid” syrup in many local grocery stores as well as in his own commissary.
Small Picture:Harvesting cotton – 1930s
Large Picture: Picking Peanuts, painting by Jack DeLoney
The Worst Job
Young boys like Jimmy Carter hated ”mopping cotton.” To kill boll weevils, they mixed arsenic with molasses and water, then walked the rows with buckets and a rag mop , daubing sticky poison onto the cotton buds.
It was a job for boys and not men, and we despised this task. After a few hours in the field our trousers, legs, and bare feet would be saturated with the syrupy mess.
Jimmy Carter, 1975 Why Not the Best?
This field is a small part of several hundred acres that earned a living for the Carters and the other families who lived here. Like his neighbors throughout southwest Georgia, Earl Carter mixed his plantings of cotton, corn, watermelons, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, hoping for a good price when it came time to haul the harvest to the railhead or the cotton gin. Sugar cane grown here was crushed, then boiled down for syrup. Mr. Earl sold his “Plains Maid” syrup in many local grocery stores as well as in his own commissary.
Small Picture:Harvesting cotton – 1930s
Large Picture: Picking Peanuts, painting by Jack DeLoney
The Worst Job
Young boys like Jimmy Carter hated ”mopping cotton.” To kill boll weevils, they mixed arsenic with molasses and water, then walked the rows with buckets and a rag mop , daubing sticky poison onto the cotton buds.
It was a job for boys and not men, and we despised this task. After a few hours in the field our trousers, legs, and bare feet would be saturated with the syrupy mess.
Jimmy Carter, 1975 Why Not the Best?