Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/515

COTTON 483 New Orleans or Uplands, varieties which are alto gether unequalled by the products of any other part of the globe. The Sea Island plant in the soft maritime climate of the low-lying islands off the coast of Georgia, where frost is scarcely known, has surpassed all other descrip tions of cotton in the strength, length, and beauty of its staple. The " Georgian Uplands " cotton, sometimes called "Boweds," is the result of attempts to culti vate Sea Island cotton on the uplands of Georgia. Sea Island cotton has also been successfully introduced into Queensland, the Fiji Islands, Tahiti, and Egypt. Of the other great Western cotton, the New Orleans, which is pro bably of Mexican origin, there are two principal varieties one with green seeds and hardy constitution, the other with white, tawny, or greyish seeds, longer and more silky in staple. The New Orleans and Boweds cottons constitute the great production of the United States, and are known in English and European markets as " American cottons." The sowing time is March and April, and the crop is gathered from August to the end of the year, or even later in the absence of frost. There are several forms of this Hirsute or Orleans type, such as the Cuba Vine, a large and showy plant, another bearing yellow or brown stapled cotton used for nankeen cloths, and a third kind, producing the "Bourbon cotton; but all these are more remarkable than useful. The fine Venezuela and the West Indian green-seeded cottons belong to the same race, the latter differing only by a faint blotch of purple at the base of the pale yellow petals. The black-seeded, long- stapled cottons (G. barbadense), though of the Sea Island type, are found in such diversified forms, and so widely spread over the different parts of the globe, that some of them have been classed as separate species. The Peruvian and the Brazilian may be adduced as instances ; the latter, known by the name of " kidney" cotton, is remarkable for the curious arrangement of its seeds, eight or ten of which adhere together in compact kidney -shaped masses, but there is little else to distinguish it from other forms of black or naked seeded cottons. The various black-seeded cottons cultivated in Brazil, together with the Peruvian and some other descriptions, constitute the Gossypium acuminatum of Royle. Colonel Trevor Clarke has made the cotton plant his special study with a view to its improvement by hybridization, and it is to be hoped that ere long he may be induced to publish the results of his investigations. Cotton Ginning. The lobes in every boll of cotton contain seeds which, except when covered with down, resemble the coffee-berry, and which have to be sepa rated from the fibre, by a process called "ginning." When this is done there remains of the bulk, as gathered from the tree, about one-third of clean cotton fit for manufacturing purposes, and two-thirds of seed. The separation of the seed from the lint is accomplished by different methods. The most primitive as well as the most rude and simple machine employed is the churka used by the Chinese and Hindus, and known in Italy under the name of manganello. It consists of two wooden rollers fixed in a frame and revolving in con tact, between which the cotton is drawn to the exclusion of the seeds. Though various attempts have been made to increase the efficiency of the churka, which is still extensively used in India, there has been but little real improvement, and it is found impossible to clean cotton rapidly by means of it. Hence ginning establish ments with machines worked by steam power have now been introduced into the principal cotton districts of India. la the year 1792 Eli Whitney, an Ameri can, produced his saw gin, the machine which, under various modifications, is still employed for cleaning the greater proportion of the cotton grown in the Southern States. It consists of a series of saws revolving between the interstices of an iron bed upon which the cotton ia placed so as to be drawn through whilst the seeds are left behind. As the fibre of the long-stapled cottons was found to be injured by the action of the saws, and to be more or less cut or " nepped," another more recent American in vention, the Macarthy gin, has come into use for cleaning Sea Island, Egyptian, and Brazilian cotton. The fibre is drawn by a leather roller between a metal-plate called the " doctor," fixed tangential to the roller, and a blade called the beater, which moves up and down in a plane immediately behind and parallel to the fixed plate. As the cotton is drawn through by the roller the seeds are forced out by the action of the movable blade, which in some machines is made to work horizontally instead of verti cally. Attempts continue to be made so te improve both the saw gin and the roller gin as in the one case to prevent injury to the staple, and in the other to increase the efficiency or capability of the machine to clean large quantities of cotton quickly. The " needle " saw gin is a recent invention intended to prevent the fibre from being cut. It consists of steel-wire set in block tin with the bottom of the teeth rounded or made smooth. On the other hand the double-action Macarthy gin, with two movable blades or beaters, the " knife-roller " gin, the " lock-jaw " gin, and others have appeared as rivals to the saw gin. The machine which will clean the largest quantity in the shortest space of time is naturally preferred, unless such injury is occasioned as materially to diminish the market value of the cottom This has sometimes been the case to the extent of Id. or2d. per IT), and even more as regards Sea Island or long-stapled cottons. The produc tion, therefore, of the most perfect and efficient cotton- cleaning machinery is of importance alike to the planter and the manufacturer, and although considerable improve meat has already been effected, there is still room for further efforts in the same direction. The seed obtained in ginning that is not required for sowing, comprising many thousands of tons, is pressed for oil, which when refined is in some cases used to mix with olive oil, or is converted into cake for feeding cattle, or into a material for making paper, whilst the ultimate residuum, or refuse, is made into soap. Even tho stalks of the cotton plant are made to answer some valuable purposes. Besides being usedfor thatch and baskets, a fibre is obtained that can be converted into gunny and other kinds of cloths, equal to those manufactured from jute. They furnish also a material that can be used for the manufacture of the com mon kinds of paper. The cotton when cleaned or separ ated from the seed is pressed, chiefly by hydraulic power, into bales varying in weight in different countries, and in this state it is ready for market and for the various pro cesses of manufacture. Cotton &ipply.The capability of the world to furnish j^ es of in sufficient abundance the raw material required by the su vast and ever-expanding cotton industry has from time to time, and under the pressure of dire necessity, been well ascertained. Happily it has been found possible to cultivate cotton over almost the whole of the intertropical and in many of the temperate portions of the globe, so that if from any cause there should be a deficiency in one part this may be compensated by the superabundance in others. The most ancient cotton-growing country is probably India. For five centuries before the Christian era cotton was largely used in the domestic manufactures of India ; and the clothing of the inhabitants then consisted, as now, chiefly of garments made from this vegetable product. More than two thousand years before Europe or England had conceived the idea of applying modern industry to the

manufacture of cotton, India had matured a system of