213 
The Treatment of the Cotton. 
Formerly it was the custom to store the cotton after it had been 
plucked in sheds, specially built for that purpose. A still older 
system was the keeping of the cotton in the open field on the spot 
where it was reaped. The cotton was simply stacked in heaps on 
a waggon and covered with a tarpaulin. 
With Sea-island cotton, which is, as has already been mentioned 
above, still dried on platforms in the old fashioned manner, and 
then stored as raw cotton, another method is now adopted, in pre- 
paring the cotton for the market. 
The cotton, as collected goes directly to the flock-mills where it 
is cleaned and packed into bales by machinery. 
With this modification of the old method, all sorts of faults came 
to iight which had not been properly considered on the erection of 
the mills and many obstacles had to be cleared out of the way, be- 
fore the chief cleaning factories attained their present state. 
It has been noted that before the erection of these central flock- 
mills, the cleaning, sorting and packing by hand was done with 
more exactness than the machinery is able to do it. 
On big plantations each plucking was treated by itself, by which 
different qualities were made. 
As the large plantations disappeared and made room for smaller 
ones, these differences in quality could not be made any more as 
one plucking gave scarcely sufficient cotton to make one bale. 
The central flock-mills have decreased the cleaning costs con- 
siderably but partly at the cost of the quality. 
The cotton suffers nothing by being sent through the plain 
flock-mills, (gins) consisting of two hard rollers, turning in oppo- 
site directions, which free it from the seed. That which has not 
been done by the machine is done by hand. 
The new gins driven by steam or water power do the work 
quicker, but they give more refuse and damaged fibres, with this 
also goes the fact that the fibres* suffer in their elasticity. 
There are two principal kinds of cleaning machines, the so-called 
“Rollergin” and the “Saw-gin". 
By the spinning of the cotton into threads one reckons a loss of 
from 13-23 % made up from loss of moisture, impurities, spoiled 
fibres, etc. These figures should be lower. 
After the cotton has been pressed into bales it is packed into 
sack-cloth (rough jute cloth) and bound by iron bands. 
As to measurements and weights of the bales, the American 
Standard bale has these measurements: r .35 by 0.67 -M. and its 
weight is about 500 lbs. 
It is curious that the size and weight of the bales has increased 
with the increase of the cotton-produce. 
The weight of the American bale has been attained from 300 lbs. 
The American cotton is known for its slovenly and clumsy pack- 
ing. A better and neater packing, for which special machines 
have been constructed, has not found general use. 
One has to fight against old habits and uses. 
