342 FIELD CROP PRODUCTION 



where it can be grown. Sea island cotton requires an 

 even, moist climate where frost is scarcely known. It is 

 grown in the coast lands and warm, moist parts of South 

 Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and in the islands off these 

 coasts. 



359. Other varieties. — Besides these two important 

 American grown varieties, there are the Egyptian cotton, 

 which is a variety of the sea island type, and India cotton, 

 which is a distinct species, both of which are of considerable 

 importance in their respective countries. Neither of them 

 is grown to any extent in the United States. 



MARKETING AND USES 



360. Preparation and uses of the fiber. — After the 

 seed cotton is harvested, it is carried to the cotton gin. 

 This machine separates the seed from the lint, which comes 

 out in great sheets of billowy whiteness, and is then com- 

 pressed by powerful hydraulic presses into bales weighing 

 500 pounds each, 24 pounds of this weight being the 

 wrapping cloth and bands around the bale. This is the 

 form in which the producer sells his cotton to the local 

 buyer, from whose hands it is sent to the mills either in 

 this country or abroad. Before the cotton is ready to be 

 spun into yarn, however, it must first go through the 

 processes of cleaning, carding, and drawing. The cotton 

 gin has not been al^le to remove all the dirt and leaves with 

 which the cotton has come in contact in picking, and some- 

 times it leaves a few seeds in, so after the bale is opened the 

 cotton is fed between several sets of one-edged knives, 

 which free the lint of a great deal of dirt but without in- 

 juring the fiber. The carding machine removes still 

 more of the dirt and lays the fibers in a parallel position. 

 The cotton is now in the form of a loose rope or sliver about 



