184 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EAW COTTON 



regularity of length. The details of pulling vary between 

 different places, and between the graders of different 

 kinds of cotton, some laying the pulled fibres repeatedly 

 over one another, and then extracting a tuft from this 

 parallelized group and placing it on the coat sleeve. 

 This latter method is the more objectionable of the two. 

 in that it extricates the longest fibres every time ; but the 

 same objection applies to both, namely, that the measure- 

 ment is a measurement of the longest fibres and of the 

 strongest fibres. This is unimportant to the skilled 

 grader, who knows instinctively how to allow for it, but 

 it leads to complete misunderstanding on the part of 

 amateurs who attempt to copy him; and it should be 

 remembered that any person who has spent less than ten 

 years in the daily grading of cotton, and has not in addi- 

 tion been born with the instinct implanted in him, is an 

 amateur at cotton-grading. 



Further, it is not easy to measure the exact length of a 

 pulled tuft, it having two vaguely defined ends instead of 

 one, as the lint has which is combed in situ on the seed , and 

 measurements are therefore just four times as incorrect. 



(c) Combed Seed-Cotton. The sample of seed-cotton to be 

 measured is broken up into five, seven, or ten bundles, 

 according to the accuracy desired, seven being the usual 

 number. Each bundle is picked up in turn, pulled into 

 two halves, and the first seed seen separating from the 

 rest in the gap is picked out for combing; the choice of 

 the seed is this way is nearly random, and if it is dependent 

 on any property at all , it probably depends upon the twist 

 of its lint, and not upon length. 



