FIBRE PLANTS 317 



some, slow process. The gin revolutionized the 

 whole cotton industry of the world. Inventions 

 had just supplied machinery to take the place 

 of hands in the spinning and weaving of cloth. 

 The gin made it possible for the cotton-growers 

 to supply the increased demand for lint. It 

 bridged a chasm about which men had been 

 hopeless: 



The gin to-day is an improved machine, com- 

 pared with Vifhitney's. But it does the work on 

 the same principle. The freed lint is compressed 

 into bales that may be marketed at once, or kept 

 for sale later. 



The best fibre is the longest and finest and 

 strongest one. Sea Island cotton has highest 

 rank. Its fibre averages 1.61 inches in length, 

 and is fine and silky. A pound of these fibres 

 could be spun into a thread 160 miles long! Un- 

 fortunately, this variety grows only on the coast 

 of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and the 

 islands of that region. So the amount produced 

 makes little impression upon the market. 



The hairy upland cotton, with short fibre, is the 

 common crop of the Cotton Belt. Its "staple" 

 is less than an inch in length, and correspond- 

 ingly thicker than that of the Sea Island. Of this 

 prevailing species, a number of varieties have been 



