COTTON 71 



Georgia spend at least $8,000,000 a year for 

 commercial nitrogen, when a proper system of 

 rotation, including leguminous crops, would abun- 

 dantly supply the soil with this ingredient. 



And this is Leak No. 2 which we can stop and 

 thereby transfer millions to the credit side of 

 King Cotton's ledger. 



THE BARBAROUS SAW GIN DESTROYS MILLIONS IN 

 COTTON VALUES 



There has been no noteworthy improvement in 

 the cotton gin since the new-born idea was first 

 worked out by Eli Whitney; and our baling methods 

 are also notoriously inefficient. " It is contended/ ' 

 says Mr. Thomas P. Grasty, "that the saw gin 

 actually wastes or destroys over 6 per cent, of all the 

 cotton raised in the Southern States meaning the 

 destruction each year of nearly $40,000,000 worth 

 of property belonging to the farmers of the South. " 

 By its rough handling it is also asserted by the 

 highest authorities, that the saw gin destroys over 

 40 per cent, of the initial strength of the cotton 

 fiber. No wonder one of our American cotton 

 specialists is on record as declaring cotton to be 

 ' the most barbarously handled commercial prod- 

 uct in the world." Besides the waste, the de- 

 struction of fiber, and the lack of uniformity in 

 size of bales, gins at present are able to pack 

 cotton at the average density of only fourteen 

 pounds per cubic foot. Every bale not sold to 

 local mills, therefore, must be sent to some cotton 

 compress and the size reduced two-thirds before 

 it can be exported. 



A fortune awaits the man who will invent a 

 compress requiring small horse power, so that the 



