220 COTTON 



operated but a small part, not only of each year, 

 as must be true of all gins, but only a small part of 

 the ginning season; parts got out of repair, and in- 

 terest on the investment amounted to much when 

 the small returns from ginning the crop of a single 

 plantation were considered. 



Once it was thought that portable ginning out- 

 fits, like portable threshing outfits, would be practic- 

 able, but too much power was needed; there was too 

 much expense connected with the transportation, 

 especially where but few bales were ready to be 

 ginned; too great difficulty in the way of securing 

 fuel and water, and too many interruptions due 

 to bad weather and poor roads. 



THE STATIONARY GIN 



The small farm gin was costly, the portable gin 

 impracticable; and so the larger stationary gin 

 came as a necessity as well as the solution of a 

 vexing problem. 



The numerous inventions incident to the com- 

 pletion of the ginning idea, the labor-saving devices 

 in many directions, the rapidity of ginning and 

 baling by the gins of greater capacity, have estab- 

 lished the large stationary gin as a prominent part 

 of the equipment of the cotton industry. 



The farmer may now haul his seed cotton to the 

 gin in an open wagon box, the suction tubes will 

 suck the cotton up, the carrying belts will carry it 

 to the saws, and the lint will go at once to the com- 

 press, giving the owner his cotton back in baled 

 form in a few minutes after the wagon is emptied. 



The old hand method made but a pound of lint 

 daily: the hand gin increased the working efficiency 

 to half a modern bale per man; the old plantation 



