418 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



At best the resulting product must have been of rather low grade, and 

 stripping for some time thereafter was utilized only as a last resort. 



Nevertheless, because the cotton grown in this area is subject to 

 early frost and was often pulled or snapped in the boll by hand, 

 growers demanded that the ginners develop methods of handling 

 immature or "bollie" cotton. Consequently gins were redesigned 

 to include more effective cleaning and burr-extracting devices than 

 were found in most parts of the Cotton Belt. 



In 1926 there was another critical season in the High Plains. The 

 crop was unusually large, prices fell abruptly, labor for hand harvest- 

 ing was scarce and expensive, and the weather was unfavorable for 

 picking by hand. Farmers were again compelled to take unusual 

 measures to save the crop. Many of them built their own sleds, em- 

 ploying a variety of original designs with the assistance of the local 

 blacksmiths; and cotton stripping received its first extensive trial. 

 By this time the improved gins were able to process the cotton, and 

 it was reported that the mechanically stripped cotton actually pro- 

 duced a better sample than cotton that was hand stripped because the 

 additional handling before it reached the gin removed much of the 

 dirt. 



As a result of the extensive use of homemade contrivances in the 

 Lubbock area during the 1926 season, several implement manufac- 

 turers became interested in developing cotton-stripping machines and 

 the following year a number of commercial strippers appeared on 

 the market. Deere and Co., the leading firm, began in 1930 to manu- 

 facture both mule-drawn and tractor-mounted strippers and two 

 years later had increased its output to 500 units per year. 



Following the onset of the depression, however, interest in mechan- 

 ical strippers languished on the part of farmers and manufacturers 

 alike. With cotton selling at 6 cents a pound, wages for hand snapping 

 at 30 cents per hundredweight, and cash extremely scarce, the market 

 for labor-saving devices disappeared. The John Deere strippers 

 were offered at $185 each on a contract calling for $25 on delivery 

 and the balance at $5 for each bale harvested. Even so dealers even- 

 tually disposed of their remaining stock in 1941 at $15 each. 11 



In the meantime experimentation in stripper design was continued 

 by the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at College Station 

 and at the Lubbock (High Plains) substation. Between 1927 and 

 1930 experiment station engineers worked out and tested the design 

 for an improved stripper which incorporated a burr extractor to 



"Neighbour, L. B., Progress in the mechanical stripping of cotton, Summary 

 Proc. 2d Ann. Beltwide Cotton Mechanization Conf . ; reprinted in Acco Press, 

 vol. 26, pp. 8-9, November 1948. 



