672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



•wliich. it is fed. This macliine is objectionable on account of the 

 slowness with wliich it operates, and also on account of its often 

 crushing the seeds and thus soiling the staple. 



The saw-gin was introduced into Brazil during the civil war 

 in the United States, when it was necessary to put into the mar- 

 ket at once a large supply of cotton. The saw-gin is said to break 

 the fiber of the cotton much more than the roller-gin, and for that 

 reason many efforts have been made by the English spinners to 

 suppress it. But in spite of these efforts the saw-gin remains 

 master of the situation, and nowadays it is but rarely that any 

 other kind is seen in Brazil, even in the remote interior. In every 

 community in which cotton is grown there is at least one gin, the 

 proprietor of which buys the uuginned cotton from the planters 

 and small farmers, cleans and bales it, and sends it to market. 

 No use is now made of the cotton seeds. They are usually thrown 

 out as so much waste. The cattle are allowed to eat what they 

 choose, and sometimes they are used for fuel. 



Home Coxsumption. — Owing to the ease with which cotton is 

 produced, the extent of its culture, the difficulty of getting the 

 raw material into market from remote points, the evenness and 

 mildness of the temperature, which, as a rule, does not require the 

 warmer clothing of a more rigorous climate, the number of do- 

 mestic purposes for which it is used, and the high tariff iipon for- 

 eign manufactured goods, the home consumption of cotton is very 

 large, and has steadily increased. In consequence of the decree 

 prohibiting the use of looms, the cotton consumed in the country, 

 until the beginning of the present century, was manufactured 

 in the most aboriginal manner. About 1845 cotton factories be- 

 gan to spring up, and there are now no less than fifty spinning 

 and weaving establishments in Brazil. 



The manufacturing industry is at present confined almost 

 wholly to the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Geraes, S5o 

 Paulo, and Bahia, where the demand for the better grades of cot- 

 ton cloth is greatest. But the factories have by no means done 

 away with direct domestic consumption of raw material. To the 

 traveler in the interior of Brazil there is no more familiar sight 

 than that of spinning with the ancient distaff and spindle. In 

 some parts of the country this custom is so common that the chil- 

 dren learn it as a matter of course, and it would be very difiicult 

 to find a person who did not know how to spin. In order to show 

 the wide-spread knowledge of this art in the interior, a Brazilian 

 gentleman once assured me that it might be taken for granted that 

 the then Brazilian prime minister could spin cotton in this aborigi- 

 nal fashion. Very nearly all the hammocks used throughout the 

 northern part of Brazil, together with considerable quantities of 

 coarse cloth, are still made of thread spun in this manner. The 



