COTTON. 



acquired in the house ; it is then 

 passed from this drying immediately 

 to the gin, or machine that separates 

 the seed from the wool ; after going 

 through the gin, and heing separated 

 from the seed, it is again turned over 

 to the women, who are generally in 

 a large room, well lighted with glass 

 windows. They sit with small ta- 

 bles before them, made eitlier with 

 open slats, reeds, or wire, when any 

 crushed seeds, and cotton burned or 

 blackened by the former machine, or 

 motes that have escaped the former 

 searches, are removed ; and to have 

 this work well done, thirty pounds is 

 all that is required per day from each 

 woman. After this third operation 

 it is considered ready to be bagged 

 for market. 



" As soon as the attention of the 

 Southern States was called to the 

 profitable cultivation of cotton by a 

 few persons along the shores of Geor- 

 gia and Carolina, the cultivation be- 

 gan to be extended into the interior. 

 The small quantity of cotton that had 

 been grown for domestic uses was 

 exchanged for larger quantities, to 

 be prepared for sale. But the great 

 difficulty to be overcome in the prog- 

 ress to extension was to find out any 

 instrument by wliich the cotton wool 

 could be separated from the seed. 



"By this time various machines 

 had been introduced for ginning the 

 Sea-Island cotton, but all of them end- 

 ed at last in two rollers revolving 

 upon each other, either longer or 

 shorter, and moving with, some more, 

 some less velocity. Those rollers 

 were but badly adapted to the hairy 

 cotton, or second variety, which soon 

 began to obtain the preference, m the 

 interior of Georgia and South Caro- 

 lina, over the first or smooth-leaved 

 variety, and merited to obtain that 

 preference, as giving, when separa- 

 ted from its downy seed, a finer and 

 stronger, although shorter fibre, and 

 as perfecting its fruit sooner, but 

 which it was almost impossible to 

 separate with the rollers, because the 

 down or fur upon the seed retained 

 the seed hanging upon the roller, and 

 denied admission to the rollers of the 

 20G 



I fresh cotton in the seed that was of- 

 I fered. Many plans were suggested, 

 i many substitutes for the rollers de- 

 signed. All succeeded in part, but 

 still they went on slow. Something 

 i was desired to do much in a short 

 j time ; something that was strong 

 enough to travel about without being 

 broken to pieces, and light enough to 

 move with its moving master. At 

 , last such a thing was found in Miller 

 and Whitney's gin, probably not the 

 best machine that could have been 

 designed, but so operative to its end, 

 so efficient to its purpose, that it took 

 possession of the whole ground. 

 From thence forward no other ma- 

 chine was sought for, and Miller and 

 \\'hitney's gin is employed to separ- 

 ate the cotton seed from Virginia to 

 Louisiana, save where the roller gin 

 is used, and its use is now altogether 

 confined to the Sea -Island cotton, 

 whose superior value is supposed to 

 warrant the great increase of labour 

 necessary in that mode of ginning. 

 Miller and Whitney's gin was design- 

 ed by Mr. Whitney, and executed at 

 the plantation of Mr. Miller, sixteen 

 miles above Savannah, about the year 

 1795, and it seems to be derived from 

 two machines already used upon cot- 

 ton, a kind of cylindrical whipper, and 

 the circular cards, before that time 

 introduced in manufacturing cotton, 

 a wooden shaft or roller enclosed 

 within a wooden box. This roller or 

 shaft has, at every inch of its length, 

 a steel blade or saw about a foot in 

 ! diameter ; above these saws is a box 

 \ containing the cotton in the seed. 

 The box has the bottom of metal slits, 

 through which the saws pass about 

 an inch, and pulling off the cotton, 

 but sometimes cutting the fibres as 

 it passes. This revolving of the saws 

 carries the cotton in the box gradual- 

 ly round, until the seeds contained in 

 the box are freed of the wool attach- 

 ed to them, when it is emptied of the 

 seed and refilled with fresh cotton : 

 it too often leaves soine of the fibre 

 behind it, which diminishes the quan- 

 tity as well as injures the quality, so 

 ^ much so that the estimated difference 

 1 of the products in these two modea of 



