COTTON. 115 



found in practice that a stringy and irregular lap sheet will readily 

 cause neps to be formed in the carding process. Generally, if the fan 

 current has been too strong, some of the good fibres will have been 

 passed out with the impurities. As a rule, when this is the case, 

 they move away from the rest of the lap in tufts which has the effect 

 of causing a want of levelness in the lap, and in giving a semi- 

 transparent and stringy character to certain portions of the lap that 

 is intended to be fed to the carding engine. 



The primary impurities from each of the two processes of opening 

 and scutching are known as the droppings. These ought to be as 



Fig. 74. Cotton droppings. 



dense as possible if the opening and scutching machines are cleaning 

 the cotton to the best advantage, economically and financially, as 

 then very little good cotton will pass out with the impurities, and 

 only Pea dropping of a dense dark hue will be produced, as shown in 

 fig. 74 ; but if the scutching is faulty the droppings become richer in 

 cotton tufts, and fatty droppings are produced similar to those shown 

 in fig. 75. 



The cotton which is struck off by the beater blades of the scutcher, 

 should be removed away from the beater's course immediately; any 

 delay at this stage maygcause the fibres to become contorted into very 

 curious shapes, and such cotton is then termed stringy. Stringy 

 cotton is very difficult to work up in the subsequent processes ; 



