18 
BULLETIN 1184, U. 
DEPARTMENT 0F AGRICULTURE. 
Much of the Pima cotton in the East is compressed, and the writer 
had an opportunity to inspect a great deal of it in several ware- 
houses and manufacturing plants. About 60 per cent was found in 
very poor condition. The worst of the imported Egyptian cotton 
in these warehouses is in as good or better condition than the best 
of the Pima. 
Some of the Pima cotton is compressed en route at points in Okla- 
homa and Texas. Xone of these compresses are doing -ati-i'actory 
work. The photographs reproduced in Figures 2, 3, and 4, taken 
during the investigation in Xew England, illustrate two important 
defects in the present method of compressing Pima cotton. Figure 
2 shows three common faults. (1) The bagging, being imperfectly 
sewed over the ends, comes loose, and the cotton gets very dirty, 
Fig. 2.— Bale of Pima cotton compressed, showing the broken band and the poor 
quality of bagging, which was not sufficiently sewed over the end of the bale. 
being often tangled with shavings and small pieces of jute, both of 
which arc very difficult to remove and cause much waste in manufac- 
turing. (2) Often a band, more commonly the end one. is broken, 
which allows the cotton to fluff out and more readily pick up foreign 
matter. (3) The bagging is of very poor quality and exceedingly 
ragged. It will be noted that the bale illustrated is on a truck, yet 
the cotton is so loose and stringy that it touches the floor at the end 
and side, which shows that when such bales are transferred much cot- 
ton is detached, becoming waste, which causes the grower consider- 
able loss. 
The bale shown in Figure 3 illustrates a different result of poor 
handling at the compress: that is. only the ends and sides are covered, 
while both faces are completely uncovered. It will be noted that 
the cotton shown on the left side of the bale, the fourth band from 
the bottom, hangs loosely almost to the second band from the bot- 
tom, while on the right it hangs from the third band from the bot- 
tom to within a few inches of the floor. As the two large samples 
