A crop with a familiar name but not a lot of familiarity in Logan County is growing well for a young Logan County family, who started it on something of a whim but now see it as a possible second business.

Cotton is growing well and producing big balls of the crop at the South Logan land of Matt and Martha Riley and their three very young children, Morgan, Monroe and McKinley.

“I had seen cotton growing when I was young and would visit my grandparents in West Tennessee in Lauderdale County,” Matt says. “He was preaching in that area then.”

His grandparents are Marilyn and the late Barclay Riley. They retired to Russellville after they had spent decades working with orphans’ homes and his preaching. Mrs. Riley still lives in the Brookhaven subdivision.

Matt came to Logan County several years ago to be near them. He is a veteran and formerly was a preacher himself. He is a graduate of Western Kentucky University. Martha is an alumna of Freed Hardeman College in Henderson, Tenn.

Matt remembers seeing a big field of cotton near U.S. 431 between Adairville and Springfield several years ago, but it is no longer there. “I guess prices on it went down. A lot of work and expenses are involved, so it needs to be profitable if someone is fully involved in the business of growing cotton.”

Matt is self-employed as the owner and operator of Dixie Tiles. He sells and installs tiles in showers, floors, patios, etc.

This is the first year he has grown cotton. He planted five rows—each about 100 feet long—In mid-May in what he calls a “good sized garden patch.” The heavy rains which followed (38 inches of precipitation in the months between the cotton’s being planted and the end of August) made the cotton grown tall, but it also made weeds and grass grow prolifically, too. “This cotton is all-natural, since we don’t use chemicals or pesticides,” he says, “so I had to do a lot of tilling.”

The cotton is now about seven feet tall. This is taller than the average plant, but Matt notes cotton grows into perennial tree heights in the Tropics.

He has been picking cotton and selling it for decorative purposes recently. Many people have shown interest in the product and in buying it in $10 bundles. Much more is available for sale.

The Rileys live at 3850 Lickskillet Road in Southwest Logan County near Olmstead. “People are welcome to come look at it,” he says. He would be glad to sell them some bundles, too.

Riley expects to increase the size of his cotton planting next year.