6 BULLETIN 62, U, S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cotton-growiug and cotton-manufacturing regions of the United 

 States, and these experts without exception declared the bales to be 

 excellently selected. 



Wliile this cotton is now well through the mill, so that the success 

 of the experiment is assured, it is not yet possible to draw more than 

 tentative and approximate conclusions on a number of points. It 

 seems safe, however, to make the following statements. 



PERCENTAGE OF WASTE. 



The two classes of cotton, Western Upland and Atlantic States 

 Upland, have yielded a visible waste of slightly different weight and 

 character, the average difference in the percentage of waste being 

 between 1 and 2 per cent, taking all the grades into consideration. 

 This difference obtained in the mill has been paralleled by carefully 

 made hand separations. In the hand separations, the average 

 difference in waste was about If per cent. On the whole, as would 

 be expected, the differences are considerably greater in the lower 

 grades than in the higher grades. The highest difference so far noted 

 was the following, but so large a difference appears altogether excep- 

 tional. 



Visible waste (hand separated). — ^Atlantic States Upland Good 

 Ordinary, 12.49 per cent; Western Good Ordinary, 7.80 per cent. 



Mill waste (visible) . — The correspondmg minimum difference was as 

 follows: Atlantic States Upland Good Ordinary, 12.57 percent; West- 

 ern Good Ordinary, 10.08 per cent. 



VALUATION OF THE WASTE. 



The value of the visible waste from the various grades has yet to be 

 determined, but from its character there can be little doubt that the 

 valuation figures for the waste of the two classes of cotton wiU be 

 approximately equal, weight for weight. 



TENSILE STRENGTH OF THE YARN. 



Preliminary and approximate figures have been obtamed con- 

 cerning the tensile strength of the yarns. Those tests show the yarn 

 from the two classes of cotton to be about equal in strength. 



As regards the relative amount of visible waste in the different 

 grades, the figures are found to be more consistent than might have 

 been expected. The mill waste in the experiments to date varies 

 from about 4 per cent in Middling Fair to about 1 1 per cent in Good 

 Ordinary, and the various official grad(vs tested fall into line with 

 something approaching mathematical uniformity, as will be seen by 

 examination of the following graph (fig. 1). 



