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From the Archives: Monkeys Pick Cotton
Status: Urban Legend
One of the stranger urban-legend type rumors that circulated in the South during the nineteenth century involved the claim that there was a planter who had trained monkeys to pick cotton. This was one of those tales that just wouldn't die. Southerners were fascinated by it, and reports of entrepreneurial planters and their trained monkeys popped up again and again in newspapers. Once cotton harvesting was mechanized the rumor lost its relevance, and today hardly anyone knows about it. I first encountered the rumor while researching some of the monkey experiments I write about in Elephants on Acid
. I know that it wouldn't be possible to actually train a monkey to pick cotton, but I became intrigued by the question of whether someone had, at some point, been stupid enough to try. Given all the other things people have done in experiments, it seemed plausible that it might have happened. However, I haven't been able to find any evidence that would persuade me that such an experiment did occur. So I'm concluding that all the reports of such attempts were simply urban legends. I've posted everything that I discovered about the history of this rumor in the hoax archive. So monkeys picking cotton may not be real, but apparently it is true that cotton planters used to train geese to weed their fields. The practice was known as "goosing the cotton." The problem was that the geese would trample the young cotton plants.
The picture shows monkeys picking pecans, not cotton. But it was the only picture related to the topic that I could find.
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Categories: Animals, Urban Legends Posted by Alex on Tue Dec 18, 2007 |
Comments (17) |
| More from the Hoax Museum Archives: | |||
Why don't you think monkeys could be trained to pick cotton? Dogs can be trained to sniff out drugs, rats can be trained to detect landmines, dolphins and seals can be trained to perform any number of feats.
There is nothing inherently improbable about monkeys trained to pick cotton.
Posted by Octavo in South Africa on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 04:42 AM
There is nothing inherently improbable about monkeys trained to pick cotton.
Except...where would someone get a plantation full of monkeys? Would they survive a trip over the ocean? Did they come from South America? What type of monkeys were they? I am sure in the 1800s people might have referred to any primate as "monkey"...Plus...how would someone keep them from simply running away unless they were all tethered to something...which seems like a lot of monkeys on a rope for someone else to look after.
It does seem improbable.
Posted by Maegan in Tampa, FL - USA on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 10:17 AM
It does seem improbable.
I heard another crazy rumor that monkeys are being trained to help the disabled.
Posted by Vorple on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 11:20 AM
haha! I saw an episode of Malcome in the Middle where a little monkey is assigned to Craig while he is in a wheelchair. It was great. The monkey abused him!
Posted by Maegan in Tampa, FL - USA on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 12:16 PM
I've seen an ancient Egyptian painting of a (presumably trained) baboon on a long leash up in a date palm, picking the dates and throwing them down to its handler below. Was this really done in ancient Egypt, or was it just a fanatasy? I don't know, but at least they had the idea.
Posted by Big Gary in Cactus, Texas on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 03:13 PM
Vorple, monkeys have been used to help the handicapped for probably thirty years or more. I forget which species is the one used.
Posted by Christopher Cole in Tucson, AZ on Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 10:03 PM
Thanks Christopher. I guess the point can be made that monkeys have made it here and aren't running away and can be trained to reliably do such complex things as opening bottles and retrieving specific items for people. Maybe cotton picking monkeys aren't so unimaginable. I'd say plausible but not confirmed.
Posted by Vorple on Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 11:09 AM
Urban legend?
Shouldn't a tale about picking cotton be called a "rural legend"?
Posted by Big Gary in Pecan Plantation, Texas on Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 08:13 PM
Shouldn't a tale about picking cotton be called a "rural legend"?
Urban legend?
Shouldn't a tale about picking cotton be called a "rural legend"?
I think I just tripped a breaker.
I may be wrong, but I think the monkey in Malcomin in the Middle was a the cappucin type. Whether or not those are the species that are really used, I have no idea.
Posted by RHM on Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 02:18 PM
Seems to me irrational to assumpe that monkeys couldn't be trained to pick cotton.I'm still surprised out how often I encounter such thinking among reputed skeptics. Pseudo-skepticism seems almost as common as pseudo-science.
I've seen a monkey that was trained to pick pockets. I've also seen ,in India,monkeys luring guard dogs to chase them , then leading them into the path of a car ,killing the dog , the monkey returning to raid what the dog was guarding.
In Asia there are types of fine tea identified as being Monkey Picked.I wonder if that's the source of the rumor in the US south. I beleive there was a tea plantation established in S carolina in the 19th century,they would have had some knowledge with Asian practices they were out to compete withand of course the whole world was connected by Shipping. (global economy is not new)So the phrase might have been known
Posted by Samba in US on Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 05:47 PM
I've seen a monkey that was trained to pick pockets. I've also seen ,in India,monkeys luring guard dogs to chase them , then leading them into the path of a car ,killing the dog , the monkey returning to raid what the dog was guarding.
In Asia there are types of fine tea identified as being Monkey Picked.I wonder if that's the source of the rumor in the US south. I beleive there was a tea plantation established in S carolina in the 19th century,they would have had some knowledge with Asian practices they were out to compete withand of course the whole world was connected by Shipping. (global economy is not new)So the phrase might have been known
Training monkeys to pick cotton would be much, much, much more difficult than training them to help disabled people or to pick pockets.
First you'd have to train them to tell the good cotton bolls from the bad ones. Then to pull all the cotton fibres out while leaving the rest of the boll behind. Then to put all the fibres in a bag or basket, and then to drag the basket along with them to the next plant (which would be a bit of a technical challenge in itself). That training alone would be difficult enough, especially when you'd have to do it with large numbers of monkeys. . .and that's not even the hardest part.
The hard part is getting them to do that same thing repeatedly for hours on end. All the above examples of monkeys doing things involved just a short, quick activity such as opening a bottle. How do you make a monkey stick to one boring task for a long period of time?
Posted by Accipiter on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:25 AM
First you'd have to train them to tell the good cotton bolls from the bad ones. Then to pull all the cotton fibres out while leaving the rest of the boll behind. Then to put all the fibres in a bag or basket, and then to drag the basket along with them to the next plant (which would be a bit of a technical challenge in itself). That training alone would be difficult enough, especially when you'd have to do it with large numbers of monkeys. . .and that's not even the hardest part.
The hard part is getting them to do that same thing repeatedly for hours on end. All the above examples of monkeys doing things involved just a short, quick activity such as opening a bottle. How do you make a monkey stick to one boring task for a long period of time?
Eh, monkeys have been trained to pick coconuts for centuries over here.
Move along, people. Nothing special about trained monkeys being treated as slaves.
Posted by RAMChYLD in Malaysia on Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 04:45 AM
Move along, people. Nothing special about trained monkeys being treated as slaves.
Surprised to hear that this is a very old story. I heard it as a '60s/'70s era ethnic joke with a punch line about not wanting to end up with a house full of monkeys on the block. [Sorry].
Posted by RMinor in Massachusetts,USA on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 05:23 PM
your so nice like putting informasiond on a site so people can see it and copy right it and use it well supper time gtg bye and good luck
Posted by courtney in vancover on Fri Feb 29, 2008 at 02:58 PM
ok well mokeys can't be trained don't give me that crap is dogd are trianed to sniff out people that are mission then monkeys can be trained and if you don't belive it won't come ture so belive there's a way always a way
Posted by w.we\\ in vancover on Fri Feb 29, 2008 at 03:02 PM
In rural areas in Thailand and Malaysia, monkeys are trained to pick coconuts. It is not a legend or something, it's actually pretty common about 10 to 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure they still use do this today.
Check out this site for pictures:
http://www.hot-screensaver.com/2007/07/06/thailand-monkey-show/
Despite a fishy website (hot screensavers??) I don't think the pictures are fakes.
Here's a more credible one:
http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/Enlargement.aspx?id=QU002937&ext=1
So why does people think that monkeys cannot be trained?
Posted by Audrey in Malaysia on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:56 AM
Check out this site for pictures:
http://www.hot-screensaver.com/2007/07/06/thailand-monkey-show/
Despite a fishy website (hot screensavers??) I don't think the pictures are fakes.
Here's a more credible one:
http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/Enlargement.aspx?id=QU002937&ext=1
So why does people think that monkeys cannot be trained?
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