PACKING AND MARKETING OF COTTON. 23 



cessful establishment of a reform so urgently demanded by persons 

 concerned in the cotton industry, and the establishment of which 

 would be the means of saving the $50,000,000 or more estimated to be 

 wasted annually by adherence to the present system. That this is 

 entirely practicable is very strongly disputed by good authority, but 

 the proposed plan seems worthy of careful consideration. 



BENEFITS TO TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES. 



Compression at the ginnery, it is said, would save at least 50 per 

 cent of the expense that attaches to the present system of recompres- 

 sion at points distant from the ginnery. Preparation of cotton 

 at the ginnery for market would not only result in large economy 

 in the cost of preliminary handling, but would result in further 

 economies in securing reductions in cost of transportation by land 

 and sea, inland and marine insurance, warehousing, etc. The 

 complete covering of the cotton, the density of the package, the 

 superior method of compression, appeal alike to transportation com- 

 panies, insurance companies, and consumers. To transport 250 

 gin-box bales requires ten 34-foot box cars. In the same space 500 

 recompressed bales and 850 gin-compressed bales may be packed. It 

 is estimated that 40,000 cars are required to move the cotton crop 

 promptly under the present system of handling. With gin com- 

 pression this important work could be done by the use of 25,000 

 or 30,000 cars, and with great saving in time and expense. Instead 

 of carrying cotton to the distant compress and being detained there 

 for long or short periods, the cars would be loaded at the ginnery or 

 a contiguous point for concentration and proceed direct to destina- 

 tion, or the seaboard if intended for export. Uniformity of the bale 

 would be especially advantageous and economical in ocean carriage. 

 In addition to economy in space the cotton could be packed in the 

 hold without the use of screw jacks, which are now necessary with 

 uneven and ragged packages, this latter performance resulting in 

 damage and loss and further impairment of the package. In an 

 address recently delivered before the traffic managers of the southern 

 railways on this subject Mr. Harvie Jordan, of Atlanta, said: 



Gin compression for the railways would mean a tremendous lessening of the 

 expense of empty freight boxes standing on sidings and rotting for six months 

 of the year, or during the heavy moving of the cotton season. Two-thirds of 

 the present rolling stock employed in the movement of the crop during six 

 months of each year could be diverted to other uses, or saved to the operating 

 expenses of the railway companies. 



ESTIMATES PROM RAILROAD MEN. 



An officer of the freight department of the Illinois Central Eail- 

 road, which runs through the cotton belt, and which hauls a large 

 quantity of cotton, has furnished the following illustration of the 

 car space and time now required to handle cotton between the farm, 

 the compress, and the port of New Orleans : 



Cotton originating at Duck Hill, Miss., if shipped north will be compressed 

 at Grenada, 12 miles distant; if shipped south, it will be compressed at 

 Winona, also 12 miles distant. The average time consumed in the conveyance 

 of 100 bales to either of those places is 2 days, and 4 box cars are required for 



