SEA ISLAND COTTON PLANTING. 135 



The process of preparing Sea Island cotton for market, after 

 it is grown, is so remarkable, and so little known, that I will 

 give the particulars. 



In gathering it from the field, great care is taken to keep it 

 clean, and free from trash and stained locks. Upon the drying 

 scaffold it is sorted over, before packing away in the cotton 

 house. "When ginning, in fair weather, it is again spread upon 

 the scaffold, and assorted. Some run it through a machine 

 called a " trasher," that whips it up and takes out sand and 

 loose dirt. It then goes to the gins, which are the same kind 

 first invented; none of the many new inventions have been 

 found efficient, and the Whitney gin totally unfit for Sea Island 

 cotton. These simple machines are 3^ feet high, 2 feet long, 

 and 1 wide, with an iron fly-wheel like that of a " box corn- 

 sheller," upon each side, working a pair of wooden rollers, 

 made of hard oak, about ten inches long and nearly an inch 

 in diameter, held together by screws. In one instance, I saw 

 a simple spring-bearer under the lower roller, and an iron one 

 on top, to prevent the cotton from winding. These rollers 

 wear out, and have to be replaced by new ones every day. I 

 would recommend gutta-percha, as worthy of a trial, as a sub- 

 stitute for wood r as something tough and hard is required. 

 The rollers are moved by the foot, like a small turning-lathe, 

 the operator standing at one end of the gin, feeding the cotton 

 very slowly through the rollers, leaving the smooth black seeds 

 behind. A "task" is from 20 to 30 Ibs. a-day, according to 

 quality. Twenty or thirty of these little machines stand in 

 one room ; and, strange to say, none of those who have at- 

 tempted to propel them by other power have succeeded. One 

 very intelligent gentleman told me that he had spent $5,000 

 in trying experiments in machinery to gin this kind of cotton. 



From the gins, the cotton is taken to the mote-table, where 

 a woman looks it over very carefully and picks out every little 



