128 AGRICULTURE FOR COMMON SCHOOLS 



times, for all the bolls do not ripen at the same time. The 

 picking season lasts about ninety to one hundred days. 



After picking, the seed cotton is taken to the cotton-gin, 

 which is a machine for separating the lint from the seed. It 

 consists of a number of circular saws fastened on a wooden 

 cylinder about three-fourths of an inch apart. These revolve 

 in slits less than a quarter of an inch wide, cut in a steel plate. 

 A mass of seed cotton is laid on the plate and as the saws re- 

 volve the teeth catch the lint and pull it off the seeds. Under 

 the plate the lint is brushed off the teeth by a revolving brush. 

 By means of a fan the lint is blown through a flue into the lint 

 room where it is baled for market. 



The seeds are used for making many different products, the 

 main ones being cotton-seed meal and cotton-seed oil. From 

 the crude oil are made soaps, salad oils, cottolene, and vari- 

 ous other articles. 



