264 



EXPOSITION, INTERNATIONAL COTTON. 



Mr. Edward Atkinson. This is not attributable 

 to any failure on the part of the managers to 

 invite the participation of foreigners. The 

 character and purposes of the undertaking 

 were made known to the leading representa- 

 tives of the great industries in all the principal 

 cities in Kn rope. South America, etc., and, from 

 the cordial recognition of its importance in 

 those countries, it was expected that they 

 would have contributed to its exhibits in suf- 

 ficient number to justify its being styled " in- 

 ternational." The misnomer in this respect is 

 due to the non-realization of reasonable expec- 

 tations. It was not exclusively a "cotton" 

 exposition, as its title would indicate. It was 

 not intended to be 80. It was the first exhi- 

 bition of any magnitude that was ever held in 

 the Southern States; and, while it was de- 

 signed not to confine its scope to cotton and 

 the interests germane to it, it was deemed ap- 

 propriate that it should derive its name from 

 the great staple product which forms the ba- 

 sis of Southern industry. While prominence 

 was given to cotton and everything relating to 

 its production and manufacture, care was taken 

 to embrace all other branches of industry. 



Agricultural Implements and Machinery. 

 The collection of implements for the cultiva- 

 tion of cotten, and of machinery for preparing, 

 packing, spinning, and weaving it, and for the 

 treatment of cotton-seed for every purpose for 

 which it is used, was the great feature of the 

 exhibition. It has never been equaled in va- 

 riety and number of articles in any former dis- 

 play, and it is doubtful if it can be excelled 

 until the inventive genius of the future shall 

 have outstripped its capacity in the present 

 time. Here were displayed plows of every 

 size and shape for the mechanical improve- 

 ment of every kind of soil, from the four-horse 

 screw pulverizer of the Maywood Company, 

 of Chicago, Illinois, capable of breaking from 

 twelve to twenty acres per day with one hand, 

 to a depth of seven inches, to the graceful 

 pony chilled plow of the Niles Chilled Plow- 

 Company, of Niles, Michigan; universal rid- 

 ing plows, steel plows, sulky plows, chilled 

 plows, subsoil plows, garden plows, adamant 

 plows, pulverizer plows, in apparently end- 

 less number. Here were harrows, cultivators, 

 scrapers, choppers, seed-sowers, fertilizer-dis- 

 tributors, seed-drills, manure-spreaders, cotton- 

 pickers, the capacity and ingenious construc- 

 tion of which amazed the farmer, ignorant of 

 their existence and accustomed to the use of 

 the primitive implements hitherto employed in 

 the preparation of the soil and the cultivation 

 of his crops. The sight of these " implements 

 of precision," each fashioned to perform its 

 destined work in the best possible manner, in 

 the quickest time, and with the least expendi- 

 Iture of manual labor, showed him how time, 

 labor, and money could be saved, and the yield 

 of his crops at the same time largely increased. 

 As an evidence of the extent to which the 

 Southern farmers have learned the lesson 



taught by this branch of the exposition, the 

 most approved of these implements are being 

 ordered in greater numbers than the manufact- 

 urers can supply them. The makers of the 

 Thomas smoothing harrow, of Geneva, New 

 York, received orders from Southern fanners 

 for upward of 1,000 harrows, costing from 

 $20 to $22 exclusive of freight. The Chicago 

 screw pulverizer and seeder attracted consid- 

 erable attention, and when seen in operation 

 was said to fulfill satisfactorily ull that its 

 makers claimed for it. Of the machines which 

 could be classed as " labor-saving '' in the de- 

 partment of farm implements, this was pre- 

 eminent. With it an intelligent farmer can 

 plant his crops at half the cost of the ordinary 

 plows. It cuts a strip eight and a half feet 

 wide and from three to seven inches deep, de- 

 pendent on the angle at which the cutting- 

 bladea are adjusted. Driven by one man and 

 drawn by four horses, it will scarify and pul- 

 verize from fifteen to twenty acres in a day ; 

 and when used as a seeder it will sow and 

 cover upward of twenty acres of wheat, oats, 

 rye, barley, millet, peas, and grass-seed. The 

 ease with which four horses can break so 

 much soil is attributable to the fact that the 

 horses draw upon a lever like a wagon-wheel, 

 on the same principle that they can draw 

 a heavier load upon a wagon than on the 

 ground. It is not pretended that the machine 

 will work on wet, rocky, stumpy, or hilly 

 ground. After the crop comes up the ma- 

 chine can be taken apart in two sections, 

 and each section used as a cultivator, stirring 

 and cleaning thoroughly the entire space be- 

 tween two rows of corn or cotton. A special 

 prize of a gold medal, or $100, was awarded 

 to this machine. The Globe Cotton Planter of 

 the Remington Agricultural Company, to which 

 a similar mark of distinction was adjudged, 

 was also universally commended for the thor- 

 oughness, with the least amount of manual 

 labor, with which it performed its work. The 

 collection of agricultural implements suited to 

 Southern husbandry, exhibited by Brennan & 

 Co., of Louisville, Kentucky, was much ad- 

 mired, and public opinion fully justified the 

 award of a gold medal which the judges rec- 

 ommended. The cotton-pickers, of which four 

 were exhibited, showed a great deal of mechan- 

 ical ingenuity, but practical farmers did not 

 believe that they furnish a reliable substitute 

 for the fingers of the darkey. A cotton-worm- 

 killer, invented and exhibited by Jackson War- 

 ner, of Texas, was an ingeniously devised im- 

 plement, certified by numbers of persons who 

 had tested it to .be thoroughly effective in de- 

 stroying the cotton-caterpillar, army-worm, 

 boll-worm, and other insects which are so de- 

 structive of the cotton-crop. The machine, 

 filled with the poisonous liquid, which, unlike 

 Paris - green and other worm-poisons, is not 

 injurious to those who apply it, is strapped on 

 the withers of a horse or mule in front of the 

 rider, and distributes a shower on each side 



