October i, 1889.I THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
289 
THE COTTON INDUSTRY. 
Such industries which are dealt with elsewhere 
as coal ruining, iron manufacture, steel manufacture, 
and engineering and building, employ almost 
exclusively male labour ; even mining, in which, 
in spite of strenuous endeavours by well-meamng 
philanthropists to the contrary, females are em- 
ployed upon the surface, the female labour only 
represents between one and two per oent. of the 
total persons employed, being about 10,000 in 
600,000. But in the cotton industry the great 
bulk of the people employed are females, and it 
is well for a drstrict like Lancashire there should 
be side by side with industries for men means 
of occupation for women. In a very able paper 
on cotton machinery (and the cotton industry is 
widely different from iron and steel manufacture 
and mining in respect to the amount of machinery 
employed ; in cotton practically everything is 
done by mechanical appliances ; the hands em- 
ployed become mere supervisers of the work that 
is being done) by an eminent Lancashire man, Mr. 
John Piatt, of Oldham, he gives some remarkable 
figures showing the progress made in cotton manu- 
facture during the century commencing 1760. In 
that year, the total value of cotton yarn produced 
was £200,000 as against £85,000,000 a hundred 
years later. In 1760, the total weight of cotton im- 
ported was 3,870,000 pounds as against 1,083,000,000 
pounds in 1860. The value of one pound of No. 
42 yarn in 1760 was ten shillings and eleven pence 
as against eleven pence a hundred years after. 
The value of one pound of No. 100 yam in 1760 
was thirty-eight shillings as against two shillings 
and six pence in 1860, In a century the value of 
yarn produced per year increased 425 times, the 
weight of cotton imported per year inoreased 285 
times, and the selling price per pound of yarn 
was reduced from twelve to fifteen times. The total 
number of spindles employed in the cotton manu- 
facture of Great Britain was given in the latter year 
as 36,1)00,000, increased to the present time, 1889, to 
about 42,000,000 spindles ; and taking them as spin- 
ning on the average No. 32 yarn, when each spindle 
produces 22£ hanks of 840 yards each, this would 
represent a regular production of 64,000,000 miles 
of yarn per day of ten hours when in full work, 
or a length of thread equal to more than four 
times round the earth every minute. To this we 
may add nearly 20 per cent as the increased 
development up to the present year, 1889. An 
eminent friend of the writer and a large cotton 
spinner puts the quantity much higher than given 
here, and estimates our present power at consider- 
ably greater even than we have given it. We 
employ in the United Kingdom, in the cotton 
industry, over 500,000 people, which is within 
measureable distance of the 600,000 persons em- 
ployed in the mining. We have more spindles at 
work than all the rest of the world combined. 
We have in the United Kingdom over 42,000,000 
as against 23,000,000 on the Continent of Europe, 
and 23,000,OUO in America. 
The raw cotton comes to us directly from the 
United States of America, the crop of which, pro- 
bably, exceeds that of all other countries put toge- 
ther. The cultivation of the cotton plant in Amerioa 
has attained its present magnitude in less than a 
hundred years, and is at the present time expanding 
very rapidly ; the area of land now under culti- 
vation being near upon 20,000,000 acres. In a fa- 
vourable season this would represent a crop of 
10,000,000 bales, and in an unfavourable season 
5,000,000 bales free and, consequently, more intelli- 
gent labour is now employed ; cotton planters, met 
by the energetic competition of Northern immigrants, 
who have settled in great numbers upon the cotton 
87 
lands of the South-Western States, have put forth 
new energy. Better systems of cultivation have been 
introduced, fertilisers are extensively employed, 
and the production of lint per acre, which had 
fallen to an average of 150 pounds, has steadily 
risen until it has now reached 200 pounds. The 
processes which cotton undergoes in the place of 
its growth are — First. — " Ginning," which se- 
parates the fibre from the seed of the 
plant, and partly cleanses the fibre from 
foreign matter. Second. — " Packing" or " Baling;" 
after " Ginning " fibre or lint is in a loose state 
and unfit for convenient transport to distant 
markets ; hence it is necessary to oompress it into 
less space, which is ordinarily performed by means 
of hydraulic presses. The package leaves the 
press in the well-known form technically called 
a bale, in whioh state it passes through the 
markets to the hands of the spinners. Third. — 
(and now we come to the actual operations of the 
cotton mill.) " Mixing," which is the blending 
of different varieties of raw ootton in order to 
secure economical production, uniform quality and 
colour, and an even third in any desired degree. 
Even when using only one class or variety of 
cotton, mixing is, in a measure, imperatively 
necessary in order to neutralise the irregularities 
of growth and imperfeot classification found more 
or less in all grades of cotton. Fourth. — " Willow- 
ing," which is a process of opening and clean- 
ing, although not very general in modern mills, 
is retained chiefly for opening and cleansing low 
cottons. Fifth : — "Opening." In consequence of the 
heavy pressure to which cotton is subjected in 
packing, the fibres become strongly matted to- 
gether ; the opening process is to loosen them, 
and to remove the heavier portion of the foreign 
substances that may be intermixed. Sixth : — 
"Scutching" has a two-fold object, namely, the 
further extraction of impurities and the formation 
of a " lap," which is a web or sheet of cotton 
formed in the machine and wound upon a small 
roller. In this web the fibres lie in all directions. 
All the operations hitherto named deal with 
ootton in the bulk. Seventh : — " Carding," in 
which the prooess of opening is continued, but the 
material is treated in its individual fibres, which 
are taken from the lap, further cleansed, and laid 
in a position approximately parallel to each other, 
forming a thin film, which is afterwards con- 
densed into a silver — a round, soft, and untwisted 
strand of cotton. In this process all short, broken 
and immature fibre is, as far as possible, removed. 
Eighth: — "Combing" is used for the production of 
fine yarns of those of high quality ; the object is 
to obtain uniformity in the length of the fibres 
undergoing preparation. To accomplish this all 
those shorter than the required standard are combed 
away and rejected. Ninth: — "Drawing," in which 
operation several slivers — the product of the card- 
ing process — are combined, and attenuated to the 
dimensions of one of the component parts. The 
objects are to render the new sliver more uniform 
in thickness, and to place the fibres more perfectly 
in parallel order. Tenth: — " Slubbing " is a process 
by which a further combination of slivers is effeoted, 
and the objects of drawing are more perfectly 
accomplished. The drawing or attenuation of the 
strand is now carried so far that it becomes 
necessary to twist it slightly in order to preserve 
its cohesion and rounded form. Eleventh: — " Inter- 
mediate " or " second slubbing " is in all respects 
a repepetition of the above, necessary in cases 
where the most even and clean form is required. 
Twelfth: — "Roving" is a continuation of the pre- 
ceding, its principal object being to attenuato 
the Bliver still further. At this point also the 
