COTTON 211 



sack which they drag behind them. The cotton is usually 

 picked by the hundred pounds. An average picker can 

 easily pick 200 pounds of seed cotton per day. 



199. Marketing. The seed cotton is carried from the 

 field to the cotton-gin, where the lint is separated from 

 the seed. The seed cotton is unloaded from the wagon 

 by means of a suction tube about eight inches in diameter, 

 the end of which is placed close to the cotton. Through 

 this tube the cotton is carried to the "gin stand," where 

 it passes over small, fine-toothed, circular saws, which 

 rotate at a very high rate of speed. These saws remove 

 the lint from the seed, which is returned by mechanical 

 conveyors to the wagon, or carried into the house used 

 for the storage of seed. From the "gin," the cotton comes 

 out in great sheets of snowy whiteness, and is formed by 

 a powerful hydraulic press into a very compact bale 

 weighing about 500 pounds. This bale is covered with a 

 coarse, heavy bagging, and is held together by strong 

 iron bands. These bales are so compact that they are often 

 left out in the rain for months without serious injury. 



200. Grades of Cotton. Cotton is graded and sold ac- 

 cording to the quality of lint, as shown by a sample taken 

 from the bale. The variety of cotton has nothing to do 

 with its market classification, but it depends much more 

 on the development of the plant. The accepted standards 

 for the grading of cotton are, from the best to the poorest: 

 (1) Fair; (2) middling fair; (3) good middling; (4) middling; 

 (5) low middling; (6) good ordinary; (7) ordinary. 

 Each of these grades is divided into subdivisions which 

 merge one grade into the other. 



Middling is the accepted standard for all short-staple 



