Courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co.
A SOUTHERN COTTON FIELD
We get cotton from a plant which grows best in the warm climate of our Southern States. Cotton has been known to the people of the world for a long time. Before the birth of Christ people knew about cotton. They thought it was wool which grew on a tree instead of a sheep’s back. No other plant is of such value to man as cotton. We should learn something about a plant that is used by man in so many ways as cotton.
The cotton plant of our Southern States is a small shrub-like annual about four feet high. The flowers of the cotton plant are white at first but change to cream color and then are tinged with red. This change takes place over a period of four days when the petals drop off and leave what is called a “boll” in the calyx of the flower. This boll, which is to contain the cotton, is really the seed container of the cotton plant and keeps on growing larger until it is about as big as a hen’s egg. When it is fully grown or ripe the boll cracks and the seeds and fibrous lint burst forth. The bolls are then gathered and taken to a cotton gin, where the seeds are separated from the lint and the lint prepared for weaving.
The boll is divided into from three to five sections. Each section contains a quantity of lint and seeds. When the boll is fully grown the covering of each of the sections cracks and opens up, revealing the contents. It is just like opening the door of each section and having the contents burst out. When these bolls burst open, there is no more beautiful sight in the world than to look out over a cotton field and see the colored people—the “cotton pickers”—busy at their work picking off the bolls.
When the crop is gathered and ginned, the lint is packed into bales and taken to the cotton mill, where it is made into cloth. One of the most interesting industrial processes in the world is to see the bale of cotton go into a cotton mill and come out a piece of cotton goods.
THE COTTON ARRIVES AT THE MILL
BALES OF COTTON AT COTTON MILL
OPENING MACHINES.
The bales are opened, and the cotton is thrown into the large hoppers at the front of these machines, which open and loosen the fibers, work out lumps and remove the grosser impurities, such as dirt, leaf, seed and trash. A strong air draft carries off the dust and foreign particles, and lifts the cotton through trunks to the floor above.
LAPPER MACHINES.
In these machines, known as Breaker and Finisher Lappers, more of the trash and impurities is beaten out of the cotton, and the lint is carried forward and wound into rolls of cotton batting, known as laps. Several of these are doubled and drawn into one so as to get the weight of each yard as uniform as possible.
FIRST STEPS IN MAKING COTTON CLOTH
CARD ROOM.
In these machines, known as Revolving Flat Top Cards, the cotton passes over revolving cylinders clothed with wire teeth, and the fibers are combed out and laid parallel with each other. They are delivered at the front of the machine as a filmy web, which is gathered together and formed into a soft downy ribbon or rope, known as card sliver. This is automatically coiled and delivered into cans.
DRAWING FRAMES.
To insure uniformity in weight, so that the yarn when spun shall run even, the card slivers are doubled and drawn out, redoubled and again drawn out, somewhat in the manner of a candy maker pulling taffy, only here the process is continuous. Six strands of the card sliver are fed in together at the back of the drawing frames, pulled out and delivered as one; and the process repeated. This produces a sliver more uniform in weight, and in which the fibres are more parallel.
SLUBBERS.
The sliver from the drawing frames is taken to machines called slubbers, where again the fibers are drawn out, and the strand of cotton, now much finer and known as slubber roving, is given a bit of twist to hold it together, and is wound on large bobbins.
PUTTING THE COTTON FIBER ON BOBBINS
SPEEDERS.
The large bobbins of roving from the slubbers are taken to other machines known as Speeders, and are unwound through the machine, again drawn out finer and finer, and rewound on smaller bobbins. The strand of cotton known as speeder roving is now ready to be taken to the spinning room for the final draft and twist necessary to turn it into yarn.
SPINNING FRAMES.
The roving from the speeders is placed on the Spinning Frames, and now undergoes its final draft as it passes through the spinning rolls. The attenuated fibres are then twisted firmly together by the action of the spindles, which turn at a speed of about 10,000 revolutions per minute. The yarn thus formed is wound on bobbins and is ready to be dyed and weaved.
THE COTTON IS READY FOR DYEING
SPOOLERS.
Two kinds of yarn are delivered at the spinning frames, known as warp and filling, which make respectively the lengthwise and crosswise threads of the cloth. The filling is in its completed form ready for the loom; the warp must first be gotten into shape for dyeing and then arranged in parallel rows or sheets of thread for weaving. The first of these processes is spooling, and consists simply in unwinding the yarn from the small bobbins on which it is spun, and rewinding it on large spools.
WARPERS.
The spools of warp yarn are placed in large wooden racks or creels from which they can conveniently unwind. The separate threads are drawn through little wires in the warpers, and are gathered into a bunch or rope of threads, which is wound in a large cylindrical ball known as a warp. If any thread breaks while passing through the warper, the little wire drops and stops the machine. In this way full count of threads and uniform weight of the goods is insured.
DYE-HOUSE.
Here the warps, after being boiled and softened to enable the dye to penetrate, are passed through the indigo vats. Several runs are made to get the beautiful depth of color. This Dye-house is equipped with one hundred indigo vats, and is one of the best-lighted and cleanest-kept dye-houses in the world.
WHERE THE COTTON IS WOVEN INTO CLOTH
BEAMING FRAMES.
After being dyed, the warps are washed and then passed through drying machinery, from which they are delivered in coils. These are brought to the beaming frames, where they are again spread out into sheets of parallel threads, and passed through the teeth of a steel comb, which separates the threads and prevents tangling, and in this form they are wound on huge iron spools known as slasher beams.
SLASHERS.
From the beaming frames the warps are taken to machines known as Slashers, where they are sized or stiffened to enable them to stand the chafing at the looms incidental to the process of weaving. The slasher beams are placed in an iron frame at the back of the slashers and unwound together through the machine. With them some additional threads of white yarn are unwound at either side to form the selvage of the cloth.
WEAVE ROOM.
The sheet of warp threads unwinds from the loom beam, receives the filling threads and is wound into a roll of cloth at the front of the loom. This weave room contains 2000 looms. It is 904 feet long by 180 feet wide (about four acres) and is the largest single weave room in the world. Overhead is the roof, which forms one vast sky-light, being of what is known as saw-tooth construction. The vertical sides of the teeth all face due north and are formed of ribbed glass, which affords the most perfect light to every section of the room.
THE COTTON CLOTH FINISHED
INSPECTING TABLES.
Before going to the baling presses every yard of cotton cloth passes under the vigilant eyes of the cloth inspectors, who mark as seconds and lay aside all pieces containing imperfections. This inspection is not a mere formality, but is conducted most carefully, and this department is specially located to get the best and most perfect light.
BALING PRESSES.
The bolts of finished cloth are now placed in presses and made into bales of finished cloth and are ready for the market.
Shipping platform of the White Oak Mills, Greensboro, N. C., showing how the bales of finished cloth are handled in shipping.
Pictures herewith by courtesy of White Oak Mills.
Just who discovered cotton is not known. The early records are so incomplete that no individual can be credited with the discovery of the value of this wonderful plant. Long before Cæsar’s time, among the Hindoos they had a law that if you stole a piece of cotton you were fined three times its value. Most of the early nations were familiar with cotton—the early Egyptians, Chinese and other ancient people used it and valued it.
The United States is the leader in the production of cotton, as in many other important world products. We produce more than seventy-five per cent of all the cotton grown in the world. The remainder is practically all grown by East India, Egypt and Brazil.
The cotton plant is one of the wonder plants of the world, when you stop to think how well we could get along without wool or silk or other fabrics if we had to.
Little would be lost to the world so far as actual comfort is concerned if all of the other fabric-making materials were lost. We would sleep, as we often do now, in beds the coverings of which were pure cotton, in a room in which the rugs were woven from cotton, the sun kept out of the room by cotton window shades. We could still have plenty of good soap to wash our bodies and clothing, for much of our soap to-day is made from cotton-seed oil; then we could use a cotton towel to dry ourselves; and put on a complete outfit of clothing made entirely of cotton. White cotton table cloths and napkins are not so fine as linen; they are good enough for anyone. Your breakfast rolls will taste quite as well if baked with cottolene instead of lard; the meat for your dinner would be fed and fattened on cotton-seed meal and hulls as they are now; you would have butter made from cotton-seed that compares favorably with the butter you now have on the table; the tobacco in your cigar would continue to be grown under cotton cloth and packed in cotton bags; armies would still sleep under cotton tents and could use gun-cotton to destroy the enemy.
There are a great many different names given to cotton cloths, but they may in general be divided into five classes—plain goods, twills, sateen, fancy cloth and jacquard fabrics. The cotton cloth in each of these classes varies and goes by different names. For instance, in Plain Goods, the different kinds are lawn, nainsook, sheeting, mull, print cloth, madras. The difference lies in the number of threads in one inch of width, the fineness and the weave. The Twills have lines running diagonally and are used for linings mostly. The difference is in the weaving. Denim, largely used for overalls, belongs to the class of Twills. Sateen is used for dress linings, dresses and waists. Then there is the class of Fancy Cloths which is another kind of weave used largely in children’s clothes, shirt waists, etc., and under the name Scrim is fine for draperies and towelling. The other class, Jacquard Fabrics, represents the most complicated form of weaving and used largely under special individual names or brands for dress goods, novelties, etc.
When the cotton is spun into yarn
it is no longer sold by the bale, but
by the pound. It is impossible to make
an exact statement of the amount of
cotton cloth one pound of cotton yarn
will make, because of the difference
in weaving. It has, however, been
figured out that a pound of cotton yarn
should make
3¹⁄₂ yards of sheeting, or
3³⁄₄ yards of muslin, or
9¹⁄₂ yards of lawn, or
7¹⁄₂ yards of calico, or
5¹⁄₂ yards of gingham, or
57 spools of thread.