Sallie Gray misses cotton and I do, too. Neither one of us could explain why, as we talked about it last week.

She’s 83 years old. I’m 43.

She grew up in Lauderdale County. When she was a child she said there was a lot of cotton grown around here. Her grandaddy had a cotton gin and a gristmill where people would come from miles around to grind the corn that also was grown here. She said her father, one year when he was laid off his job on the railroad, grew some cotton.

As time went by and cotton went away, Sallie would raise a few stalks at her home. This year she grew some where she lives at Beverly Healthcare, where it’s also a treat for other residents who haven’t seen cotton in a while, or who’ve never seen cotton growing at all.

The stalks were short this year because of the drought over the summer, but one of Sallie’s stalks had 15 bolls on it.

I grew up in Northeast Arkansas. No trees to speak of. Flat land. No curves in the road. It’s the Mississippi River Delta, which isn’t just in Mississippi, like some think, but branches out from Illinois and Kentucky, broadening through Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana toward the Gulf of Mexico.

As a kid I loved this time of year because you could breathe deep the defoliant sprayed over the cotton fields by crop dusters. Soon you’d see trailer, after trailer, after trailer, after trailer full of cotton roll down the highway.

I used to play in the cotton fields around my house. There’s something comforting about seeing it again, especially this time of year, if only in a photograph.

Maybe it reminds me and Sallie of our youth. Maybe that’s why we seek it out. Or maybe it’s just as simple as what Sallie said when I asked her why she grows it. She said: “I’ve always seen it. We don’t see it anymore. I just like to see it grow.”

My feelings exactly. I hope she’ll save me some seeds for next spring.

Here’s some agricultural tidbits I dug up:

n According to the International Cotton Advisory Committee, China, India and Pakistan are expected to produce more than half of the world’s cotton production for the first time in history — an estimated 13 million tons out of a total of 25 million tons for 2006/2007. Those countries also are expected to consume 16.6 million tons of cotton, or 65 percent of the projected world consumption, up from 50 percent in 2000/2001.

n A total of 17 U.S. states produce cotton but only three (Georgia, Mississippi and Texas) have cotton ranking among their top two commodities produced. Here’s what we’re producing: Alabama — chicken and cattle; Arizona — cattle and lettuce; Arkansas — chicken and rice; California — dairy products and greenhouse/nursery; Florida — greenhouse/nursery and oranges; Georgia — chicken and cotton; Kansas — cattle and wheat; Louisiana — sugar cane and rice; Mississippi — chicken and cotton; Missouri — soybeans and cattle; New Mexico — dairy products and greenhouse/nursery; North Carolina — hogs and chickens; Oklahoma — cattle and hogs; South Carolina — chicken and greenhouse/nursery; Tennessee — cattle and chickens; Texas — cattle and cotton; Virginia — chicken and cattle.



Steve Gillespie is assistant editor of The Meridian Star. E-mail him at sgillespie@themeridianstar.com