MECHANIZING THE COTTON HARVEST — STREET 419 



clean the cotton as it was harvested. 12 This machine importantly in- 

 fluenced the design of most of the commercial strippers that were 

 later built. 



When labor shortages began to occur in the High Plains during 

 World War II, farmers lost no time in adopting mechanical strippers. 

 Deere and Co., which had sold practically no strippers from 1932 

 to 1942, was at last able to capitalize on its previous developmental 

 work and became the chief supplier with an output of about 4,400 

 machines from 1946 to 1948. The contrast with depression condi- 

 tions is indicated by the fact that in the latter year the company sold 

 its machines at a delivered price of $905, exclusive of tractor. Several 

 other manufacturers turned out machines in smaller quantities, and by 

 1955 it was estimated that there were over 23,000 strippers available 

 for use on southwestern farms (see table 1). Some of the newer 

 strippers employ revolving fiber brushes instead of a metal stripper 

 roll, following a design developed by the Oklahoma Agricultural 

 Experiment Station in cooperation with the United States Department 

 of Agriculture. 13 



Although cotton strippers have been tested in nearly all portions of 

 the Cotton Belt, to date their effective use has been confined largely to 

 the High Plains and Rolling Plains of Texas, Oklahoma, and New 

 Mexico, where they seem best adapted to harvesting the type of cotton 

 grown under the rather exceptional climatic conditions prevailing in 

 those areas. About one-fifth of the Texas and Oklahoma crops were 

 harvested by strippers in 1955 (see table 1) . 



SPINDLE PICKERS 



Inventions in this group have included a multiplicity of cotton 

 harvesters designed to pick the open cotton from the bolls by means of 

 spindles, fingers, or prongs. The aim has been to construct a machine 

 that could be used for repeated pickings during the season without 

 material injury to the unopened bolls and the foliage necessary for 

 continued growth. However, from the time of Rembert and Prescott's 

 early invention in 1850 until the nineties very little progress was made 

 in developing such a machine. About this time Angus Campbell, a 

 Scottish patternmaker employed by the Deering Harvester Co., 

 began to work out the essential mechanical principles for a machine 

 that would pass a series of rotating spindles through a cotton plant 

 and twist the loose fiber from the bolls. He started work in 1885 and 

 took out his first patent in 1895. 



13 Smith, H. P., et al., Mechanical harvesting of cotton as affected by varietal 

 characteristics and other factors, Texas Agr. Exp. Stat. Bull. 580, December 1939. 



13 Oates, W. J. ; Witt, R. H. ; and Wood, W. S., The development of a brush-type 

 cotton harvester, Agr. Eng., vol. 33, pp. 135-136, 142, March 1952. 



