PACKING AND MABKETING OF COTTON. 13 



ordinary flat bale from the farm to Liverpool and its sale in that 

 market, and the cost of handling the gin-compressed bale, the latter 

 being possibly one-half the former. 



HiLTJSTEATION OF BALING. 



The condition of cotton under different methods of handling is 

 well shown by figure 3. No. 1 is a bale that has been ordered com- 

 pressed by a shipper, the order including patching with a suflScient 

 amount of bagging to cover the sample holes that were cut previous 

 to reaching the compress. It will be noticed that in the upper part 

 imder the second band, some cotton is exposed, which indicates that 

 this bale originally was covered at the gin with the lowest grade 

 of jute bagging, with approximately one-fourth inch mesh. 



No. 2 is a bale that has been ordered compressed and patched with 

 secondhand bagging, which is bagging that has been stripped from 

 cotton at the mills in America and abroad and is returned to various 

 compresses for the purpose of using as patches. It is very often so 

 applied on order from the shipper, on account of its cheapness, to 

 fairly well covered bales, making what was originally a fair pack- 

 age one of very ordinary appearance. 



No. 3 is a very long and wide spongy bale, the very worst character 

 to handle at the compress. The bale, although large and ungainly, is 

 exceedingly light and weighs considerably less than any bale shown 

 in the illustration. The more this bale is pressed the worse it 

 becomes, as it is wider and longer than the platens, or jaws, of a 

 compress, and it necessarily follows that the pressure in the center 

 bulges the package out at the sides. The original covering was of 

 an inferior character, and the bale was not ordered patched. It will 

 be noticed that the second upper band passes over the original sample 

 hole. The space where cotton shows between the third and fourth 

 bands is where, after the bale was compressed, the owner, desiring a 

 sample, cut the packing to obtain it. He then evidently sold the 

 bale to another buyer, who, to satisfy himself that the cotton was as 

 represented by the sample, again cut the bale at the point above the 

 lower second band. It is probable the bale was shipped just as it is 

 shown in the picture. 



No. 4 is a standard box bale, with original poor bagging. It was 

 not ordered patched, which fact is in evidence, one of the lower bands 

 having passed over the original sample hole before compressing. As 

 was the case in No. 3, the owner desired a sample, possibly to forward 

 abroad, and after compressing cut the bagging below the first upper 

 band, leaving that part of the bale exposed. Whether or not the 

 bale will go forward in even as good condition as the illustration 

 shows depends entirely upon the owner, who may resell or resample 

 the bale two, three, or four times, each time cutting another hole and 

 drawing another sample. 



No. 5 is an extremely Avide bale, wider than the platens, and 

 weighing more than 600 pounds. It was ordered compiessed without 

 patching, but had originally a side strip on each side. One of these 

 strips was applied to cover the side exposed to the camera ; the other 

 strip was used to cover holes on the opposite side of the bale. In 

 this case first one strip was used on each side, which was not suffi- 

 cient to cover the width of the cuts in the bagging, and therefore 



