xxviii INTRODUCTION. 



roller-gin, though costly, is deemed a superior machine in Alabama and other cotton districts. The 

 Louisiana cylinder-gin for short staple cotton, made by Jenks, of Bridesburg, Philadelphia, is also much 

 esteemed for completely removing all extraneous matters without injury to the fibre. But as the Upland 

 short staple, or black-seed cotton, was the first variety cultivated in the south, a means of removing the 

 seed from its tenacious envelope was early sought, and happily supplied by the genius of Eli Whitney, 

 a native of Worcester county, Massachusetts, under the patronage of the widow of General Greene, of 

 Georgia, and her husband, Mr. Miller. Whitney s saw-gin, patented in March, 1794, was the first 

 cotton-cleaning machine recorded in the United States Patent Office. Its appearance produced intense 

 excitement, and numerous infringements of his patent rights, which involved him in expensive and vexa 

 tious lawsuits, and finally drove him into other enterprises, in which his ingenuity achieved reputation 

 and success. In 1796 Whitney and partner had thirty machines in operation in Georgia by animal or 

 water power, and in December, 1801, the legislature of South Carolina purchased the right for that 

 State at a cost of $50,000, and threw it open to the public. One of the early invasions of the patent 

 was by Ilogden Holmes, of Georgia, who also patented a saw-gin in 1796. Two other Georgians the 

 same year took out patents for saw-gins, and in 1803 another was taken for a saw-gin by G. F. Salton- 

 stall, of North Carolina. Among other improvements on gins made by Mr. Carver, before mentioned, 

 who had long experience in their manufacture, was the grate patented by him in 1823, which being 

 placed where the seed is arrested and the fibre taken from it by the saw, prevented clogging, and the 

 delay of cleaning the saw, &c. In 1837 he patented an improvement in ribs for saw-gins. Mr. 

 McCarthy in 1840 connected a vibrating saw to the roller-gin, adapting it for cleaning both green and 

 black seed cotton. This machine it was thought would supersede Whitney s, the fibre cleaned by it 

 having brought three cents per pound more in the Mobile market than that cleaned by the latter. 



The manufacture of cotton-gins has long formed a branch of business in the machine-shops of the 

 northern and middle States, and an independent business in several southern cities. One of the earliest 

 and most extensive of these concerns was that of Samuel Griswold, at Clinton, Georgia. In 1833 the 

 business was commenced in Autauga county, Alabama, by Daniel Pratt, a native of New Hampshire, 

 who had learned the business with Mr. Griswold. He there manufactured cotton-gins of superior 

 quality for the neighboring southwestern States, including many for Texas, and even New Mexico, and 

 acquired reputation and fortune in supplying the great demand, which required a branch house in New 

 Orleans. His large accumulations were employed in erecting saw and planing mills, one of the first 

 flouring-mills in Alabama, grist-mills, large cotton and cotton-gin factories, and other factories and tene 

 ments, forming the flourishing village of Prattville, where in 1851 he employed 200 hands, and made 

 annually about 600 gins. He had manufactured since 1833 upwards of 8.000 cotton-gins. In 1846 he 

 received from the University of Alabama the honorary degree of master in the mechanic arts, for the 

 intelligent and benevolent exercise of his mechanical ingenuity and ample means. 



We have thus very briefly, as compared with the importance of the subject, given a sketch .of the 

 rise and progress of the manufacture and introduction of some of the most important implements 

 connected with husbandry. To some it might seem a subject better discussed in the volume on manu 

 factures; but believing it to be one of special interest to agriculturists, we have not hesitated respecting 

 the propriety of incorporating the facts in a volume prepared especially for the farmers of the country ) 

 with whose tastes and progress we feel a deep interest, and whose advantages in late years we can 

 appreciate from experience. We hope we may be pardoned for referring in a public work to our 

 personal experience in stating that, as recently as 1849, when we relieved ourselves of the cultivation 

 of a farm in Pennsylvania to take charge of the census, nearly all the operations of agriculture, except 

 that of threshing the grain, were performed by manual labor; and the number of workmen to be pro 

 vided for, especially during the period of harvest, rendered several months of the year a season of 

 family solicitude and drudgery. On the same farm the crops of the past year were sown and gathered 

 in a much shorter time, in better condition, with one-fourth the number of laborers the grain being 

 cut by machinery, and the grass mown, loaded on the wagon, and transferred therefrom to mow by 



