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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 19, 1885. 



An Automatic L'-jtlon-l'iukt-r. 



from it came to be n^ed for " any one at all," which is 

 not "qnidam," but " quicunque." It is surely a vice of 

 language to be resisted that a word meaniug often and 

 properly " fixed, sure," should also mean " not sure," 

 " uncertain," and even " a little," which is almost as wide 

 of its origin. 



Many a foreign object of questionable advantage has 

 fallen into our " well of English undefiled " since Johnson 

 so qualified the tongue of Chaucer ; but the above are 

 not mere French chalk, or Spanish white, or Italian irons, 

 or Paissia leather — which may lie or float without harm 

 — they are noxious matter, which will alter the very 

 character of the water itself ; and that man would deserve 

 a statue who should succeed in stamping them out, as the 

 source of a true " mouth-disease " among our homoglosses. 



AN AUTOMATIC COTTON-PICKER. 



CI OTTON PICKING is now almost universally done by 

 '' hand, and, as a matter of course, is a slow, tedious, 

 and expensive operation. A machine which would suc- 

 cessfully take the place of hand-jiicking has long been 

 needed, but there have been, so far, too many difliculties 

 lying in the way of its construction and ])erfect operation. 

 The work required of it is of such a delicate and exacting 

 nature as to require a most accurate piece of mechanism. 

 The perfect machine should remove all the fibre from every 

 pod, should leave the plants unitjured, should require a 

 minimum amount of care and attendance, and should be 

 rapid in operation. 



The cotton-h-arvester heie illustrated is mountid upon 

 wheels which stride the cotton row, and is designed to 

 gather the cotton from the growing plants with the least 

 possible damage to them, and to automatic'illy deliver the 

 cotton into a receptacle cariied on tlie machine. 



The machine is double, there being a right and left 

 portion, each forming a complete self-operating machine, 

 and the two being connected togeth-r by the top-yoke 

 portion of the frame, so as to run astride the row, each 

 part of the machine reaching m among the Vjrancht s on its 

 side of the row to pick the seed-cotton. This is accom- 

 plished by a series of gilibous-shaped plates mounted on a 

 pair of longitudinal shafts juurnaled in the frame and 

 revolved by the main driving-wheels acting through suitable 

 beveled gears; the picker-shafts make about five revolu- 

 tions to one revolution of the diiving-wheels. The plates 

 are bounded by two convex arcs of a circle, and are rounded 

 at the ends to enable them to part their way among the 

 cotton-branches while revolving, and to permit them 

 to crowd up out of their path any limbs which may 

 chance to lie across the aueriuies in which they rotate- 

 Each of the plates is perforated near one edge to receive 

 the shaft upon which they are tixed to project alternately 

 on opposite sides to balance each other ; tlieir motion is 

 across the path of the machine aud upward through the 

 cotton. The front face of each plate is armed with a great 

 many picking-teeth set like card-teeth to hook in the direc- 

 tion of their moticm to pick the cotton. By the revolution 

 of the plates or pickers the cotton is carried ihroi gh the 

 apertures in the wall of the brush-box, and is there stripped 

 from the pickers by rapidly-revolving vertical brushes. The 



