SERGIPE 121 



strong and white. The crop was not ready at the time of our visit. 

 Picking takes place here in August — September. Owing to the rainy 

 season and the bad state of the roads it was quite impossible for us to 

 visit the fields so we had to content ourselves with examining the 

 cotton at the ginneries and the cotton mills. 



Besides our stay at Aracaju, we stopped at Buquim, S. 

 Christovao (the old capital of Sergipe), Maroim, Japaratuba, 

 and Propria. 



The ginning factories of Sergipe have an excellent method of clean- 

 ing the cotton prior to ginning : a hexagonal sieve-drum placed in a 

 slanting position with meshes 9 by 6mm. receives the cotton at the top 

 and the loose cotton is thrown gently from one side to the other by the 

 rotation of the drum at about 35 to 40 revolutions per minute ; the 

 cotton gradually works its way to the outlet at the lower end from 

 where it is taken to the gin. This simple contrivance does not damage 

 the "bloom" of the cotton. 



Out of 2,850 kilos of seed cotton which pass through one sieve, 

 over 50 kilos of dust and foreign matter were extracted daily. 



At Japaratuba we witnessed the cotton arriving from Aquidaban. 

 The bales were insufficiently covered with bagging, the whole front 

 and two sides of each bale were uncovered. It was raining 

 heavily and the cotton not being densely pressed of course became 

 saturated right through. These bales had come a distance of 24 kilos 

 and during the journey they had experienced several heavy tropical 

 showers. 



The Federal Government has started four experimental cotton 

 farms in Sergipe at Annapolis, Dores, Propria and Sao Paulo, Ijut 

 none of them was quite ready at the time of our visit. 



The country is divided into four cotton zones, viz. : 



( 1 ) Nossa Senhora das Dores with the following places — 



Dores (most important) 



Capella 



Maroim 



Aquidaban (important) 



(2) Propria with — 



Propria 

 Gararii 



Porto da Folha 

 Villa Nova 



(3) Sao Paulo with — 



Sao Paulo 



Itabaiana (important) 

 Campo do Britto 

 Dist. da Carira 



(4) Annapolis with — 



Annapolis 



Lagarto 



Riachao 



Buquim 



Estancia 



Campos 



