216 COTTON 



tion could never have become a commercial enter- 

 prise of more than local interest. With seed picked 

 by hand cotton manufacturing would never have 

 developed. Some other fiber wool or flax 

 might have been King, but cotton never. 



It required the cotton gin doing the work of 

 picking by other power than by hand, to develop 

 this industry, and make it rank as second to none 

 in all the world. 



THE BEGINNING OF THE COTTON GIN 



Eli Whitney, to whom the world credits the cot- 

 ton gin, was a graduate of Yale and a native 

 of Massachusetts. He possessed an inventive 

 spirit and a full knowledge of mechanical devices. 

 Seventeen hundred and ninety-two found him 

 on his way to South Carolina where he ex- 

 pected to follow teaching as a profession. But 

 greater things were in store for him: his genius 

 was to be directed in another way; a larger 

 service to the race was to be his. For some 

 reason his arrangements for teaching miscarried, 

 and he was left without employment. He was in 

 a strange land, he had no work to which he might 

 go, and was without means to begin any new enter- 

 prise. Chance favored him, however. Soon after 

 nis arrival an invitation to visit a friend came to 

 him. He accepted, and while sharing this hospi- 

 tality with others who also came to enjoy the 

 warmth of the South Carolina home, Whitney 

 learned of the difficulties of the Southern planter, 

 and especially of the great difficulty that stood in 

 the way of the development and production of a 

 great cotton crop. Just how this matter was pre- 

 sented; in just what form it came to his attention, 



