396 



COTTOX-WOOL. 



Appendix. which the cotton is gathered should be perfectly clean, 

 and applied solely to that purpose. 



The quantity that is gathered depends upon the bearing 

 of the trees. The most that an experienced workman can 

 collect is forty-five pounds per diem. When it is cleaned 

 at the time of gathering, thirty pounds may be reckoned 

 a very good day's work. If it be wished that each black 

 should clean what he gathers, he should be furnished with 

 a basket and a bag, or two bags. They ought to cease 

 gathering at two or three o'clock and commence cleaning* 

 The workman then places before him a basket or bag, 

 and spreads upon the back of the other a little of the 

 wool, which he cleanses from dirt, such as earth, straws, 

 insects, &c., and above all separates the yellow cotton 

 from the white. I have already mentioned, that the 

 alteration in the colour of the wool is caused by an insect. 

 Yellow cotton is the principal thing necessary to cleanse 

 the white from. Those years in which little of it is found 

 are always the most productive and the labour sooner over. 

 Cotton thus gathered should be put in a clean warehouse, 

 but it is more advantageous to clean it beforehand : this 

 operation would be much more difficult after milling. If 

 it be feared that mice may get amongst it, it should be 

 prepared immediately, lest those animals should soil it 

 with their dirt, in chewing it for their nests, or feeding on 

 the seed, the oil of which stains the wool. 



Cylinder-mills are mostly made use of to separate the 

 seeds from the wool. At one end is a trendle, to which is 

 affixed a cord fastened at the extremity of the machine. 

 The cord doubled passes over a piece of wood about three 

 inches long attached to one of the bars of a wheel, in the 

 middle of which is a wooden cylinder, above which is 

 placed another, at the distance of only two or three lines^ 

 which is attached to another wheel opposed to the first. 



The 



