COTTON 
51 
of great possibilities by yoking it with a motive- 
power invention absolutely worthless. 
Whatever the difficulties, we may be sure that if 
Mr. Lowry's basic principle is right, it will sooner 
or later be separated from all entangling alliances 
and set to the service of a great need. And sup- 
pose it succeeds simply in doing the work of four 
men? Or suppose it reduces the cost of picking 
by just half? Picking now costs $100,000,000 a 
year; — think of saving just $50,000,000 annually 
to the South! Or to put it differently, "To pick a 
crop of 11,000,000 bales, at an average of 150 
pounds of seed cotton a day per picker, means that 
for a picking season of three months, consisting of 
twenty working days each, somewhat over 1,830,- 
000 people must be kept at work. Hence the basis 
for the claim that a picker doing the work of four 
men would reduce 1,500,000 people to other in- 
dustries for a fourth of each year." 
Indeed, there are millions in it! 
Note.— Of course many other pickers besides the Lowry have been 
brought before the public, but the Lowry is clearly the one that now 
gives most promise of success. We know an old man who twenty 
years ago invented a picker and still has faith that his idea will work 
into a success. An incorporated company, the Dixie Cotton Picker Co. , 
of Chicago, is also at work upon the problem, and we are indebted to 
them for the pictures of their machine appearing herewith, and for the 
following description of how it works: 
"The two large wheels of the machine travel in the furrows between 
the rows, the plants being gathered into the front of the machine between 
the two points of the gatherers; and, as the bushes strike the apron, 
they are gently bent over to the ground so that the picking spindles 
enter the same while the plants are held between the skirts running 
parallel with the machine. There is continually entering the bushes 
during the progress of the machine forward about 60 revolving picking 
fingers. It is evident, also, that much cotton will be picked even 
though it be lying upon the ground, because these picking fingers with 
every vertical thrust downward reach clear to the ground. Each of 
these picking fingers, while in the plant, makes 22 revolutions and con- 
tinues revolving about their own axes until they have disappeared into 
the machine; at which time they cease revolving, and a stripping wheel 
