SOUTHEAST MISSOURIANS HARVESTED COTTON WHEN IT WAS KING

SENATH -- R.K. Swindle was around when the backs of mules, horses and human beings bore cotton to the title of king of crops in Southeast Missouri.

Everything from plowing to planting to tending to harvesting was done by hand. "You've got to be a little bit smart to operate a farm today," said the 82-year-old Swindle, who retired from farming 18 years ago.

Today, cotton is still the number-one crop in Southeast Missouri, though little by little mechanization and the use of herbicides and pesticides have turned the beasts of burden including most of the humans out to pasture.

Cotton has been pumping the Southeast Missouri economy especially its southern reaches since the 1920s.

The history of cotton in the region began, of course, with the draining of the swamp that was Southeast Missouri. The Little River Drainage District, formed in 1905, was a compact between businessmen who envisioned turning the district's 550,000 acres of swampland into some of the nation's richest farmland.

At the time, it was the largest drainage project of its kind ever attempted.

Before the project, a minimal amount of cotton was grown in Southeast Missouri, most of it along the ridges. According to Dave Albers, an agronomist with the University of Missouri Delta Center in Portageville, only 10,000-20,000 acres were planted in cotton in 1916.

By 1920, cotton was being grown on 140,000 acres in the state, and the cotton acreage would increase steadily to a high of 630,000 in 1949.

The introduction of the tractor played a big part in that dramatic growth, but for decades the number of large landholders remained few. The farms averaged about 40 acres because the work remained so labor-intensive. Most of it was performed by local people.

"At that time they could hire all the labor they needed to harvest the crop," Albers said.

Much of that labor force consisted of black families who often lived in houses on the land. Swindle said there were 13 houses on his farm, and that he often loaned the families money to get them through the winter until the spring planting season.

Some of the large landholders also used sharecroppers.

Its labor intensity was a plus, Albers says. "One advantage economically cotton had over other crops is cotton historically has employed a larger work force."

Until the 1960s, cotton was the cash crop in the still primarily agricultural region. "It was everything to the economy," said Michael Aide, chairman of the department of agriculture at Southeast Missouri State University.

"...As far as the economy of Southeast Missouri went, it was the staple crop," said Aide.

But if the tractor meant the beginning of the end of the days when farm workers could make a living in Southeast Missouri, the arrival of the mechanized cotton picker in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the coup de grace.

"The whole social situation was changed," Albers said.

Since little in the way of industry was available, many of the remaining farm workers left for St. Louis or Memphis.

The southern counties' population densities declined, and a number of towns shrunk by half.

"I think we're still seeing (the population decline)," Aide said.

Cotton acreage remained consistent through the 1960s, but dropped off in the 1970s with the rise in soybean prices. By 1981, less than 100,000 acres were planted in cotton in Missouri.

But the acreages have since rebounded to the current 328,000. Missouri's cotton harvest in 1991 was worth $140 million, making it the state's third-most-valuable crop.

The 540,000 bales a bale generally equals 480 pounds produced on 328,000 acres constituted a production record.

The primary cotton-producing counties in the region today remain Dunklin, New Madrid and Pemiscot, which in 1991 accounted for 296,000 of the 332,000 acres of cotton planted in the state. But there was a time when cotton was planted as far north as Cape Girardeau, which once had two cotton gins of its own.

Cotton production is best farther south, mainly because the flat land is easier to farm.

Southeast Missouri once was home to more than 50 gins, a number which has dwindled to about half that. But mechanization innovations, again, have enabled the fewer number of gins to process the crop, which has increased seven-fold in only the past 10 years.

Part of the recent jump is due to increased demand. People are wearing more cotton clothing, Mike Milam, an agronomist with the University of Missouri Extension Service in Kennett, said.

New government participation programs also are partly responsible. Many farmers are switching from soybeans or corn to cotton for good reasons: "The price is good and the government programs," Milam said.

"And it's a good export crop, and that helps with our balance of payments."

As many as 80 percent of the farms in Dunklin county or more than 2,000 farms grow cotton. In 1991, the county led the state in cotton acreage with 130,800.

"Anybody who can grow cotton is," said Milam.

Today, much of the farmland is rented, often from non-farming descendants of landholders or absentee owners. Farms have expanded to 1,000, 2,000 and up to 5,000 acres.

A recent innovation, modular storage systems, has given both farmers and the cotton ginners much greater efficiency. Until five years ago, the ginning had to stop when farmers ran out of cotton trailers to transport their crop to market. Now farmers can store their cotton in modules in the fields, and the modules can be hauled long distances and stored at the gin.

The innovation has lengthened the growing season and has allowed the ginners to get more use out of their investment, Albers said.

Swindle retired from farming 18 years ago. He also was involved in the cotton gin business and in insurance, and from the mid-60s to the mid-70s was a member of the Board of Regents of Southeast Missouri State University. But the former president of the Missouri Cotton Producers Association started out operating the 400-acre family farm near Senath.

Though soybeans and even watermelons have given delta farmers some diversity, in 1993 the region's economic health remains inextricably linked to the cotton plant 75 years after it took root.

"There is some industry now, but cotton is an important part of (the economy)," Swindle said.

George Paul Harris, who manages Senath's Farmers Union Gin, which ginned 34,000 bales of cotton last year, put it squarely: "Everything else depends on it."