296 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



to think of raising cotton for market. Separating one pound of the clean staple 

 from the seed was a day's work for a woman ; but the time usually devoted to 

 picking cotton was the evening, after the labor of the field was over. Then the 

 slaves, men, women and children, were collected in circles with one whose duty 

 it was to rouse the dozing and quicken the indolent. While the company were 

 engaged in this conversation, "Gentlemen, (said Mrs. Greene,) apply to my 

 young friend, Mr. Whitney — he can make anything." Upon which she conduct- 

 ed them into a neighboring room, and showed them her tambour frame, and a 

 number of toys which Mr. W. had made or repaired for the children. She then 

 mtroduced the gentlemen to Whitney himself, extolling his genius and com- 

 mending him to their notice and friendship. He modestly disclaimed all preten- 

 sions to mechanical genius ; and when they named their subject, he replied that 

 he had never seen either cotton or cotton seed m his life. Mrs. G. said to one of 

 the gentlemen, " I have accomplished my aim. Mr. Whitoey is a very deserv- 

 ing young man, and to bring him into notice was my object. The interest which 

 our friends now feel for him will, I hope, lead to his getting some employment 

 to enable him to prosecute the study of the law." 



But a new turn that no one of the company dreamed of, had been given to 

 Mr. Whitney's views. It being out of season for cotton in the seed, he went to Sa- 

 vannah and searched among the warehouses and boats, until he found a small par- 

 cel of it. This he carried home, and communicated his intentions to Mr. Miller, 

 who v/arraly encouraged him, and assigned him a room in the basement of the 

 house, where he set himself at work with such rude materials and instruments 

 as a Georgia plantation afforded. With these resources, however, he made tools 

 better suited to his purpose, and drew his own wire, (of which the teeth of the 

 earliest gins were made,) an article which was not at that time to be found in 

 the market of Savannah. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller were the only persons 

 ever admitted to his workshop, and the only persons who knew in what way he 

 was employing himself. The many hours he spent in his mysterious pursuits 

 afforded matter of great curiosity and often of raillery to the younger members 

 of the family. Near the close of the winter, the machine was so nearly com- 

 pleted as to leave no doubt of its success. 



Mrs. Greene was eager to communicate to her numerous friends the knowl- 

 edge of this important invention, peculiarly important at that time, because then 

 the market was glutted with all those articles which were suited to the climate 

 and soil of Georgia, and nothing could be found to give occupation to the negroes 

 and support to the white inhabitants. This opened suddenly to the planters 

 boundless resources of wealth, and rendered the occupations of the slaves less 

 unhealthy and laborious than they had been before. 



Mrs. Greene, therefore, invited to her house gentlemen from different parts of 

 the State, and on the first day after they had assembled, she conducted them to 

 a temporary building, which had been erected for the machine, and they saw 

 with astonishment and delight, that more cotton could be separated from the 

 seed m one day, by the labor of a single hand, than could be done in the usual 

 manner in the space of many months. 



Mr. Whitney might now have indulged in bright reveries of fortune and of 

 fame; but we shall have various opportunities of seeing that he tempered his 

 inventive genius with an unusual share of the calm, considerate qualities of the 

 financier. Although urged by his friends to secure a patent, and devote him- 

 self to the manufacture and introduction of his machines, he coolly replied, that 

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