FIBER CROPS 



181 



Long-staple cotton brings a higher price per pound than short- 

 staple, because the long fiber may be used for making fine, even 

 threads of great strength for weaving cloth of fine texture, for 

 laces, or for other expensive woven goods, whereas the short- 

 staple is used in weaving the cheaper grades of cloth. Short- 

 staple varieties are earlier in maturity and give larger yields than 

 do long-staple varieties. The amount of long-staple cotton pro- 

 duced in the United States is a small fraction of the entire crop. 

 Only the richer 

 lands can profitably 

 be devoted to the 

 production of long- 

 staple cotton. 



227. How the 

 fiber is separated 

 from the seed. Seed 



cotton is carried 

 to a gin, in lots 

 of from 1200 to 

 1 500 pounds. That 

 amount may be con- 

 veniently tramped 

 into a standard 

 wagon box, and 

 yields a bale of 500 

 pounds of lint, the 

 standard commercial 



package. A gin is essentially a set of fine-toothed circular saws 

 and a set of hair brushes, with supplemental machinery for prop- 

 erly handling seed cotton and the separated products, seed and 

 lint. The seed cotton is brought in contact with the revolving 

 saws ; the fiber is entangled in the saw teeth and pulled from 

 the seed. The hair brushes are made to revolve in such a man- 

 ner as to remove the entangled fiber from the saw teeth and 

 deliver it to a press where it can be made into a compact bale. 

 The bale is wrapped in coarse jute bagging and bound with six 



FIG. 88. The square and boll of cotton 



At the left is a flower bud, or square, about two days before 

 the flower is open. At the right is the young boll a few 

 days after the petals of the flower have fallen to the ground 



