MECHANIZING THE COTTON HARVEST — STREET 417 



sought to substitute the entire cotton plant for wood pulp as a basic 

 source of cellulose in the manufacture of rayon. 10 He recommended 

 that the cotton plants be thickly sown, mown, and baled by machine 

 like hay, and then dried and powdered. The oil contained in the seeds 

 was to be removed by the use of a solvent, and the remainder of the 

 plant chemically digested into alpha cellulose. After a number of 

 years of experimentation Dr. Cameron claimed that his process was a 

 laboratory success. Coming during the depression years, the an- 

 nouncement caused alarm among farmers who feared a radical change 

 in methods of production. The need for a substitute for wood pulp 

 was evidently not pressing enough, however, to insure funds for 

 development and the method thus did not become commercially 

 practicable. 



STRIPPING MACHINES 



Cotton strippers, also known in some of their early forms as cotton 

 sleds or "sledders," remove the cotton, burr and all, from the stalk by 

 combing the plant either with extended teeth or by drawing it between 

 stationary slots, revolving rolls, or brushes. A patent for a rather 

 simple invention of this kind was granted to John Hughes of New 

 Bern, N. C, in 1871. The following year Z. B. Sims of Bonham, Tex., 

 patented a sled with projecting fingers for the same purpose. 



A somewhat more complicated and skillfully constructed model 

 appeared in 1874, when W. H. Pedrick, of Richmond, Ind., patented 

 a stripper which employed two revolving rolls studded with teeth to 

 pull the ripe cotton from the plants. Despite the fact that these 

 machines closely resembled in principle some that later came into use, 

 they were long neglected because it was felt that they wasted too much 

 cotton and lowered its grade excessively. 



The idea of mechanically stripping cotton was reintroduced into 

 the Texas Panhandle in 1914, when a bumper crop coincided with 

 prices so low that the cost of hand picking could not be covered. 

 Several farmers in desperation harvested their cotton by dragging 

 it with a section of ordinary picket fence tied to a team. This make- 

 shift method resulted in cotton so full of trash and unopened bolls that 

 it was refused at the gin. Thereupon these farmers, undaunted, took 

 their cotton to a grain thresher and had it threshed ! The threshing 

 process broke open the unripe bolls and removed some of the trash, 

 after which it was possible for the gin to handle it more satisfactorily. 



10 Cotton mown like hay and chemically digested, Science, n. s., vol. 83, p. 10, 

 May 22, 1936 ; Macormac, Alfred R., Utilization of the whole cotton plant, Sci. 

 Month., vol. 43, pp. 285-286, September 1936 ; Scientia omnia vincit : Experiments 

 in turning the whole cotton plant into rayon, Sci. Amer., vol. 163, p. 243, 

 November 1940. 



