216 
COTTON 
tion could never have become a commercial enter- 
rise of more than local interest. With seed picked 
y hand cotton manufacturing would never have 
developed. Some other fiber — wool or flax — 
might have been King, but cotton never. 
It required the cotton gin — doing the work of 
picking by other power than by hand, — to develop 
this industry, and make it rank as second to none 
in all the world. 
THE BEGINNING OF THE COTTON GIN 
Eli Whitney, to whom the world credits the cot- 
ton gin, was a graduate of Yale and a native 
of Massachusetts. He possessed an inventive 
spirit and a full knowledge of mechanical devices. 
Seventeen hundred and ninety-two found him 
on his way to South Carolina where he ex- 
pected to follow teaching as a profession. But 
greater things were in store for him: his genius 
was to be directed in another way; a larger 
service to the race was to be his. For some 
reason his arrangements for teaching miscarried, 
and he was left without employment. He was in 
a strange land, he had no work to which he might 
go, and was without means to begin any new enter- 
rise. Chance favored him, however. Soon after 
is arrival an invitation to visit a friend came to 
him. He accepted, and while sharing this hospi- 
tality with others who also came to enjoy the 
warmth of the South Carolina home, Whitney 
learned of the difficulties of the Southern planter, 
and especially of the great difficulty that stood in 
the way of the development and production of a 
great cotton crop. Just how this matter was pre- 
sented; in just what form it came to his attention, 
