HAXDLIXG AND MARKETING OF ARIZONA-EGYPTIAN COTTON. 5 



BALING AND COVERING THE COTTON. 



AU press boxes in the Salt River Valley are standard size, i. e., 27 

 by 54 inches, thus pressing a bale to approximately 12 pounds den- 

 sity to the cubic foot. This size is known to the cotton trade as a 

 flat or uncompressed bale, and is similar to the great majority of the 

 bales put up by the gins throughout the South. 



It is very difficult to secure bales of regular and uniform weight, 

 as' the weight and size of the bale depend upon the weight of seed 

 cotton brought to the gin by the farmer. The manager of the gin 

 weighs the wagon and cotton together on platform scales, and by 

 deducting the weight of the wagon from the total he obtains the 

 weight of the seed cotton. From the weight of the seed cotton the 

 ginner is able to estimate the weight of the bales he will make out of 

 the wagonload of cotton. It is undesirable to have a number of 

 small lots of cotton left over to be stored; therefore the ginner uses 

 all of the seed cotton which the farmer has on his wagon and dis- 

 tributes the weight into the most convenient number of bales. He 

 may be able to make either three light-weight or two heavy bales. 



The first cotton baled in the Salt River Valley was not covered 

 sufficiently. Side strips were not used, nor were the heads properly 

 covered. One of the gins used second-hand sugar bags as a wrap- 

 ping, which were too light in weight and were more or less rotten, thus 

 affording very little protection. Plate I, figure 2, shows that the 

 covering of the cotton thus baled was not such as to afford protection 

 against country damage and fire under the present method of sam- 

 pling. During 1913 one gin used a good quality of bagging and 

 baled the cotton properly. Every gin should use a good quality of 

 new bagging or a heavy burlap of sufficient strength to withstand 

 rough handling. 1 



ADVISABILITY OF GIN COMPRESSION. 



A great improvement in the existing methods of marketing the 

 Arizona crop could be made by the use of gin compresses. There 

 are a number of well-known types of presses which give good results 

 with cotton from the condensers of the saw gin outfit. The roller gin 

 does not adapt itself to feeding into the roller feeder type of press. 

 A gin compress without the roller feature is as well adapted to press- 

 ing col ton from a roller as from a saw gin. The establishment of such 

 u pre--, for general use in Arizona might introduce a great saving to 

 the producer in the way of samples, compress fees, and freight 

 charges. It is a well-known fad, that, the gin-compressed bale is 

 easier fco handle and takes up less space (see PI. I, fig. 3, and PL II, 

 fig. 2), as the roll on is usually pressed to a density of 'M) pounds per 



1 No. 2 Calcutta bagging has been found to be of suitable weight and strength. 



