COTTON 51 



of great possibilities by yoking it with a motive- 

 power invention absolutely worthless. 



Whatever the difficulties, we may be sure that if 

 Mr. Lowry's basic principle is right, it will sooner 

 or later be separated from all entangling alliances 

 and set to the service of a great need. And sup- 

 pose it succeeds simply in doing the work of four 

 men? Or suppose it reduces the cost of picking 

 by just half? Picking now costs $100,000,000 a 

 year think of saving just $50,000,000 annually 

 to the South! Or to put it differently, "To pick a 

 crop of 11,000,000 bales, at an average of 150 

 pounds of seed cotton a day per picker, means that 

 for a picking season of three months, consisting of 

 twenty working days each, somewhat over 1,830,- 

 000 people must be kept at work. Hence the basis 

 for the claim that a picker doing the work of four 

 men would reduce 1,500,000 people to other in- 

 dustries for a fourth of each year." 



Indeed, there are millions in it! 



NOTE. Of course many other pickers besides the Lowry have been 

 brought before the public, but the Lowry is clearly the one that now 

 gives most promise of success. We know an old man who twenty 

 years ago invented a picker and still has faith that his idea will work 

 into a success. An incorporated company, the Dixie Cotton Picker Co., 

 of Chicago, is also at work upon the problem, and we are indebted to 

 them for the pictures of their machine appearing herewith, and for the 

 following description of how it works : 



4 'The two large wheels of the machine travel in the furrows between 

 the rows, the plants being gathered into the front of the machine between 

 the two points of the gatherers; and, as the bushes strike the apron, 

 they are gently bent over to the ground so that the picking spindles 

 enter the same while the plants are held between the skirts running 

 parallel with the machine. There is continually entering the bushes 

 during the progress of the machine forward about 60 revolving picking 

 fingers. It is evident, also, that much cotton will be picked even 

 though it be lying upon the ground, because these picking fingers with 

 every vertical thrust downward reach clear to the ground. Each of 

 these picking fingers, while in the plant, makes 22 revolutions and con- 

 tinues revolving about their own axes until they have disappeared into 

 the machine; at which time they cease revolving, and a stripping wheel 



