A PROPOSED SYSTEM. 



How these conditions may be removed and modern business methods 

 applied to the cultivation and preparation of American cotton for 

 market are questions to which the attention of economists is being 

 directed and which are being earnestly discussed by men concerned in 

 the several branches of the industry. There is no dispute as to the 

 fact that the methods of producing and preparing American cotton 

 are wasteful, and there is practically a universal desire for a change 

 that will give promise of reformation. The time is opportune, at 

 least for discussing plans, and encouragement is found in the fact 

 that those actively engaged in the industry, from farmer to spinner, 

 are prepared to cooperate with and support any practical and feasible 

 system the application of which would secure the results desired. 



The magnitude of the business, as heretofore explained, makes it 

 difficult and discouraging to individual effort, corporate enterprise, 

 or action by municipal or State authorities, a fact that is accentuated 

 by failure of such efforts. The inadequate covering of the bale, the 

 absence of proper care after baling, the cutting of the covering for 

 samples, the dilatory and expensive method of conveyance, and other 

 conditions that are deplored by the trade are the outgrowth of the 

 system in vogue and are inseparate from it. Efforts heretofore made 

 to bring about reform have been directed to treatment of these symp- 

 toms, little attention having been given the responsible cause. Mr. 

 G. E. Hightower, of Jackson, Miss., previously quoted, states: 



The dealers individually are not to be censured too severely for the waste, 

 the extravagance, and the abuse so common in the industry to-day, because no 

 individual can afford to provide a system of warehouses, warehouse keepers, 

 weighers, and shippers for the protection and proper handling of the cotton he 

 buys. No Individual dealer handles more than a very small percentage of the 

 cotton in the territory where he operates, and the necessary equipment for the 

 proper care would cost too great an outlay to allow a profit on his business 

 should he provide it. It is therefore a necessity that the dealer should adapt 

 himself to the system in vogue and apply the method in the main used by others 

 in order to make money. 



BALING AT GINNERIES. 



Proper baling by completely covering with material that will insure 

 protection can be satisfactorily accomplished by compressing at the 

 ginnery, and this is undoubtedly practicable for the large percentage 

 of the crop that is grown under conditions of concentrated production. 

 Indeed, gin compression has been established at a number of points 

 in the cotton belt and on many of the large plantations, with highly 

 satisfactory results. A gin compress will take the output of a battery 

 of four or six gins. It turns out a bale of 500 pounds, 20 by 26 by 54 

 inches, or 18 by 30 by 48 inches, compressed to a density of 30 pounds 

 to the cubic foot, covered with clean, closely woven burlap, and bound 

 with seven steel ties (figs. 8 and 9). Thus packed at the gin the bale 



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