9 Foot Sacks

Abbeville, MS 1996

Floyd and Leona Hollman hand pick cotton on Hollman’s farm in Abbeville, MS and place it in traditional 9-foot cotton sacks, which drag behind them—an extremely rare sight in late 20th Century Mississippi. Hollman said he still liked to pick some of his cotton crop partly because he enjoyed the work and partly because he got a higher price for clean cotton. In his younger days, Hollman claimed he could often pick 300 pounds of cotton in a day, but by his late 80s Hollman said he had to slow down some, and could only pick 100 pounds a day.