COTTON- WOOL. 



383 



There is another kind, calculated to work by cattle, Appendix, 

 wind, or water, which may hereafter be produced with 

 advantage, but would be found too expensive and com- 

 plicated at first. 



The black seed being loosely attached to the wool, is 

 easily separated by the gin without injury to the staple. 



The green seed, on the contrary, adheres so closely to 

 the wool that it can only be separated by a saw-gin, which 

 cuts the staple and depreciates the cotton one-half, but if 

 hand-picked it would be more valuable. 



The green seed is more productive than the black, but 

 the wool of the latter is of considerably higher value. 



It is hardly necessary to observe that, that mode of 

 ginning is to be preferred, which tends least to break the 

 seeds and entangle the fibres of the cotton. 



After the cotton has been ginned, it should be carefully 

 examined and freed from all motes, broken seeds, stained 

 wool, &c. as its value in Europe much depends upon the 

 condition in which it is packed. The usual mode of 

 packing is this. A bag is suspended through a round 

 hole in the floor of the cotton-house, its mouth having 

 been previously distended by a hoop. Into this bag the 

 cotton is thrown by small quantities, and pressed down by 

 a stout man standing in the bag with a pretty heavy pestle 

 of hard wood. From two hundredweight and a half to 

 two hundred weight and three-quarters, should be com- 

 pressed into five yards of bagging. 



In America, four acres of cotton and four acres of 

 provision are generally the proportion planted for each 

 labourer, and which therefore each labourer is capable of 

 managing. To pick fifty pounds of cotton in a day is 

 considered as a fair task for one person. 



The plants should be cut down every year, within three 

 or four inches of the ground. The time for doing this, 



which 



