Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. In parts of the state where cotton was grown, the fall of the year brought not only color in autumn leaves but also roadsides that were often white with cotton that blew out of the wagons that steadily traveled from the fields to the gins. Farmers had to frequently empty the cotton-picking machines into wire cotton wagons and transport them to the gin, where each one had to be logged in. All day, for several months, this parade of cotton wagons reminded the community of how important cotton was to the local economy. In the early 1970’s, farmers began investing in expensive equipment that could construct rectangular compressed modules, containing six to seven bales worth of cotton, that could stay in the fields until the grower had time to load them on flat beds and take them to be ginned.