SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
raw cotton by some sort of mechanical device. The Bureau of Plant 
Industry and the Department of~Agriculture stated that: ‘Several 
devices of cotton-picking- machines Teva been placed upon the market 
in recent years, but none of these have come into use, while a number 
of demonstrations of these machines “have beén made. The results of 
numerous efforts along these lines as yet afford very little ground for 
supposing that the problem is accessible to.a mechanical solution 
along practicable lines. The successful cultivation of cotton is. still 
dependent upon an ample supply of labour for picking the crop.” In 
describing the kinds of machines which have been invented, the Bureau 
says: “ Most of the machines are worked on the principle of the vacuum. 
The seed cotton is sucked from the bolls and carried through tubes 
into a receptacle in the rear of the machine. None of these machines 
have come into use.” Nevertheless, manufacturers are devoting a 
great deal of money to the improvement of their machines. The 
Vacuum Cotton Picking Company, of Missouri, claim that the “ Thur- 
man” machine would pick all kinds of cotton, and pick it clean. The 
injaies Cotton Harvester Company, of Westbrook Main, notified that it 
had a machine which was at present being tried out in Georgia, Arizona, 
and shortly would be tried in South Carolina, and was meeting with 
good success. This company asserts that the harvester will pick cotton 
a number of times quicker than it can be picked by hand, and with 
much less physical exertion, as the machine picks the cotton and 
delivers it into a bag. By hand-picking the person has to straighten 
up and open the bag hung round his neck, and put his handful of 
cotton into the bag. This one feature of the machine would, therefore, 
enable the man to pick double the amount of cotton. 
DIFFICULTIES OF MECHANICAL PICKING. 
One of the principal difficulties which has to be overcome lies in 
the fact that cotton does not mature simultaneously. Even in the same 
field some bolls will be full, others being green, and still others entirely 
green. The machine, in its operation, does not discriminate, but picks 
every boll, acting, apparently, upon the theory that “all is fish that 
comes to its net.” Another disadvantage at present is that the machine 
ruins the plants after picking, and thus prevents them from being 
picked a second time. The view taken by Dr. Cobb, however, is shared 
by most of the people who have directly interested themselves in the 
subject, and the proprietor of Commerce and Finance, a journal devoted 
in part to the cotton trade, writes that he hopes to have a machine 
ready within the next twelve months, but would give no information 
about it at present. It is highly probable that with a number of keen 
minds working on the problem, it may be possible to overcome the 
difficulties which now confront them, and produce-a machine that will 
do the work-of cotton-picking equal to that performed by that of sak 
pickers. 
LABOUR IN COTTON FIELDS. 
Facts relating to the price of labour in cotton fields collected by 
‘Mr. Nathan are of interest. Wages in the picking section of the United 
States vary considerably. From the Bureau of Crop Estimates of the 
United States Department of Agriculture the found that early in the 
season (autumn of 1919) the range in price for picking 100 Ibs. of 
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