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The following views upon this subject are presented in a letter from 
F. E. Whitfield, sen., of Corinth, Mississippi: 
By the new process of converting seed-cotton directly into yarns only four machines 
are used, viz, the card, drawing-frame, speeder, and spinning-frame, (such as are now 
in common use ;) the card only is changed, and that slightly, by substituting an attach- 
ment for the lickerin, at a cost of about $300. 
The attachment receives the seed-cotton, gently removes the seed, combs out the 
dust, trash, motes, &c., and delivers the filaments, untangled, and parallel, to the card ; 
thus superseding the gin, press and compress, (which are only used to render cotton 
transportable,) the willower, lapper, double lapper, breaker, and four-fifths of the 
cards, which are only intended to try to remedy the injury done by the gin, press, and 
compress. It also saves or supersedes the railway and railway drawing-head ; also all 
jack-frames, slubbers, mules, twisters, eveners, &c., together with all the buildings, 
motive-power, and operatives to hold, drive, and attend said discarded machinery. It 
saves one-half the usual waste, and produces better and stronger sliver, roving, and 
thread than can be made of baled cotton ; thereby enabling operatives to attend more 
machinery, and each machine to do more work, especially in the spinning and weaving 
rooms. The reason why the card will do four times more by this process, using the 
same motive-power, is, the filaments are not permitted to leave the machinery, fly, or 
become tangled, but are kept straight, and carding is but the straightening of the cot- 
ton filaments. The extra strength of the thread is owing to the working of the cotton 
fresh from the seed, the oil of which has kept it alive, light, elastic, and flexible, with 
all its attenuating qualities perfect ; and to the fact that it has never been napped, cut, 
or tangled by the gin, pressed, compressed, or permitted to become dry, seasoned, and 
brittle in this tangled condition, nor has it been injured by the willower, lapper, double- 
lapper, breaker, and cards, where the damage done by the gin, press, and compress is 
sought to be remedied. 
This small attachment (only 36 inches leng by 18 inches wide) supersedes the above 
mentioned eight machines, simply because the first three are used to render cotton 
transportable, and the last five are intended to remedy the damage done by the first . 
three. But these advantages, great as they are, are not half that are claimed for the new 
process. The ginning, seed-bagging, and ties are saved. 
Take a bale of cotton on a farm near Corinth, and see the expenses, &c., incurred in 
sending it, via Memphis, to Boston, Mass.: Hauling to Corinth, sampling, weighing, 
deduction of 2 to 4 pounds from weight; profits of purchaser, freights and insurance 
to Memphis, drayage to cotton-shed, storage, insurance, deep sampling, commissions for 
selling, brokerage for buying, deep boring, second weighing, repairs, drayage to com- 
press, compressing, drayage to steamer or depot, freight and insurance to Boston. To 
these add waste, drayage, and stealage, all the expenses, speculations, and peculations 
ef the guerrillas of the South and the great cotton rings of the North; add also the 
expenses in our sea-port towns, (where it is recompressed to be shipped to Europe,) the 
expenses and profits of the shipment, and the expenses after its arrival there until it is 
sold to the manufacturer, who buys only the net cotton, (not the bagging or ties,) at 
his own price. For Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, &c., take the surplus crop of the 
world, fix and control the price, not only there, but in every cotton mart. 
Europe, China, and India pay gold for cotton and cotton-fabrics shipped from Fall 
River, in Massachusetts, and other places. Tbe planter gets receipts from his merchant 
for a year’s supply of provisions, farm-tools, &c., and is fortunate if the receipts are in 
full to date, (the negro, for his share, over and above his scant food and clothes, gets 
jew’s-harps and ginger-cake.) Who gets the difference in exchange between the 
nations, the margin of 14 per cent. between gold and national-bank notes? It proba- 
bly is one of the perquisites of “ middle-meu,” except in such instances as Fall River 
Manufacturing Company. 
Now, if to all these you add the expenses, profits, &c., of the manufactured goods 
returned south, you will have some idea of what middle-men receive and what the 
new process will save to our impoverished but still beloved South land. For instance, 
take eight of the above twenty-five enumerated items of expense on cotton in transitu 
from the field to New England, viz, ginning,$4; bagging and ties, $2.50; freight to 
Memphis, $2; commissions, $1.25 ; brokerage, 75 cents ; storage, 50 ceuts; compressing, 
75 cents; freight to Boston, $6.25; total, $18 per bale. which, on 4,200,000 bales, 
amounts to $75,600,000. The item of seed is worth $5 per bale as a fertilizer, equal to 
$21,000,000, and decorticating more than doubles its value. 
There can be no competition away from the cotton-fields, for seed-cotton will not 
bear transportation, and none other can be used. 
The crop. of 1875 is estimated at 4,400,000 bales, of which the South consumed about 
200,000 ; the balance was shipped north and to Europe. The average price was prob- 
ably about 10 cents per pound, or $50 per bale. The enhanced value of crude cotton 
when converted into yarns is estimated at from 100 to 125 per cent. ; into shirting and 
sheeting, 200 per cent.; into prints, still more; and into fine muslins, 300 to 400 per 
o 
