.392 MANUFACTURES. 



The loss or waste sustained in spinning ginned cotton arises from the 

 presence in the lint of foreign substances, such as sand, dust, and leaf, or 

 of motes (which are light immature seed), of short fibres, of fibres crimped 

 or knotted, termed nips, and of fibres that have been strained and weak- 

 ened by being pulled with too great or sudden a force from the seed. 



The adventitious impurities, such as sand, dust, and leaf, are to be 

 remedied by careful handling in picking and storing, and they may be 

 in large measure removed by passing the cotton, before ginning, through 

 machines known as openers, whippers and threshers, where the cotton, 

 while violently agitated, is exposed to a current of air. At an early period 

 this was accomplished by subjecting the cotton to the vibration of cord 

 fastened to a large wooden bow, and cotton known as " bowed cotton," or 

 " Georgia bows," enjoyed a high rcputaticn in the market. Formerly 

 these machines were to be found in nearly every gin house, and although 

 several excellent patterns of these machines are still offered by the makers 

 of agricultural implements, their use has been almost entirely aban- 

 doned. The plea being the loss in weight, which is of the same short- 

 sighted character as the notion that the out-turn increased by the use of 

 the heaviest bagging and ties, not reflecting that all this tare is estimated 

 and overestimated by the purchaser, and deductions made therefor in 

 the price. 



Motes are separated by their greater specific gravity from the lint. 

 The volume of air passing to the gin brush, wdiich sweeps the lint 

 through to the lint room, is regulated by a movable mote board. In 

 most gins the proper arrangement of tlie mote board effectually separates 

 the motes from the lint. Many of the patrons of toll gins, however, ob- 

 ject to the loss in weight occasioned by tlie removal of these impurities, 

 a loss which, owing to the bulk of the loose motes, is more apparent 

 than real. 



Short fibres are, to some extent, a necessity, as both short and long 

 fibres occur on every seed. The remedy is a careful selection of planting- 

 seed having the most uniform length of fibre. Mr. Ephraim Clark, a 

 distinguished selector and perfector of long staple seeds, pays special at- 

 tention to this, using a comb to straighten out the fibres on the seed, so 

 as to ascertain accurately the degree of uniformity before selecting them 

 for planting. Ginning first for the long, and a second time for the short 

 fibres mitigates the evil, as did the old-fashioned lint room in use before 

 the introduction of condensers, where the different lengths of fibres were 

 separated by ])eing blown greater or less distances as they fell into a 

 large room. The i:)rolific source of the trouble is, however, the mixing 

 of difierent lots of cotton, those grown from different seed, or on different 

 soils, or even opening at different periods of the same season, all which 



