220 
COTTON 
operated but a small part, not only of each year, 
as must be true of all gins, but only a small part of 
the ginning season; parts got out of repair, and in- 
terest on the investment amounted to much when 
the small returns from ginning the crop of a single 
plantation were considered. 
Once it was thought that portable ginning out- 
fits, like portable threshing outfits, would be practic- 
able, but too much power was needed; there was too 
much expense connected with the transportation, 
especially where but few bales were ready to be 
ginned; too great difficulty in the way of securing 
fuel and water, and too many interruptions due 
to bad weather and poor roads. 
THE STATIONARY GIN 
The small farm gin was costly, the portable gin 
impracticable; and so the larger stationary gin 
came as a necessity as well as the solution of a 
vexing problem. 
The numerous inventions incident to the com- 
pletion of the ginning idea, the labor-saving devices 
in many directions, the rapidity of ginning and 
baling by the gins of greater capacity, have estab- 
lished the large stationary gin as a prominent part 
of the equipment of the cotton industry. 
The farmer may now haul his seed cotton to the 
gin in an open wagon box, the suction tubes will 
suck the cotton up, the carrying belts will carry it 
to the saws, and the lint will go at once to the com- 
press, giving the owner his cotton back in baled 
form in a few minutes after the wagon is emptied. 
The old hand method made but a pound of lint 
daily: the hand gin increased the working efficiency 
to half a modern bale per man; the old plantation 
