506 MANUFACTURES. 



follows, therefore, that there are at least seventy locations where more 

 than two thousand hales of cotton are growr; within a maximum distance 

 not exceeding four miles. A two-horse wagon would transport at least 

 four bales of cotton in the day over this distance, so that the propinquity 

 would suffice. The buildings proper for a giimery, turning out in the 

 three ginning months two thousand bales of cotton, would not cost $2,000. 

 Three fifty saw gins, with feeders and condensers, would cost $650. A 

 Dederick cotton press, $1,000 ; shafting, elevators and belting, $350 ; for 

 the power, whether water or steam, $1,000 would suffice. In all, an 

 investment of $5,000, against an average cost of $1,074 for the gin houses 

 actually enumerated, having an average capacity of six bales a day. The 

 expenses of running such an establishment would be : for supplies, in- 

 cluding wood, if a steam power were used, $400 ; for wages, one mechanic 

 at $2.00 a day, $200 ; a firemen at $1.00 per diem, $100 ; two boys and 

 two grown laborers for the season, $120 — total, $120. At the minimum 

 charges for ginning, viz : $2.00 per bale, the proceeds would be $4,000 for 

 the season, and deducting running expenses, there would be left $3,180, 

 or sixty-three per cent, on the capital invested. It will naturally be 

 asked what inducements over and above the minimum charges would be 

 offered to draw custom. To the present gin house the small producer 

 delivers his seed cotton without knowing exactl}^ what it weighs, it is 

 stored in close proximity to other heaps of cotton, which are to be ginned 

 first, and there is always more or less doubt, uncertainty, and suspicion 

 as to the out-turn. Besides, for the most part, the cotton has to be carried 

 up stairs to the second story, a laborious process, and almost always there 

 is a delay of one or two days. 



With the enlarged gin house the cotton might be weighed on platform 

 scales, in the wagon, it could be quickly and easily thrown into a hopper, 

 and thence carried, by an elevator, immediately to the platform from 

 which it would be raked into the feeders. In twenty minutes, or almost 

 as soon as the wagon could be unloaded, the ginning would be complet- 

 ed, the seed delivered, and the bale packed, weighed and thrown on the 

 wagon. The wdiole process would be completed under the immediate 

 inspection of the producer, and to his satisfaction. Tliis method is pur- 

 sued at a ginnery connected with the Glendale cotton factory, in Spar- 

 tanburg, which, in consequence, receives the patronage of the neighbor- 

 hood, seed cotton being hauled there from a distance of eleven miles. To 

 these inducements are to be added the increased value of the cotton from 

 better handling, the cost of repressing at the shipping port would be 

 saved, and there would be a reduction of freight on inland transportation 

 for the compressed bales. Where these ginneries were on a line of rail- 

 way the cotton might ba delivered at reduced rates in any market town 



