Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1857-1858, 1857-01-24
From the Tennessee Farmer and Mechanic.
Improved Machinery for Preparing
Cotton.

OEORGE ". HENRY, OF AlODue, Ala, mas IT,
Gently patented machinery for the preparation
of cotton, that is likely to add much value to
this staple. The improvement consists of ma
chinery for spinning the fibre into yarns, as it
comes from the Gin, thereby saving the injury
to the staple from baIing, as well as the necessa
ry waste, resulting from sampling, handling and
shipping. If this invention proves of the value
which it is represented by its inventors and
others, it must be of unlimited advantage to
the cotton raiser, and will enhance the value of
this staple as materially as did the invention Of
the Gin by Whitney. We shall take occasion
to inform our readers Of the practical results Of
this invention as soon as it is tested. Mr.. Hen
~ viii have his machine in operation in Ala
bama in few weeks after which time, we can
form. some estimate of its value. The following
extract from the Journal Of Commerce, gives
description of the improvement and the adj
vantages arising from its use:
To estimate the extent of this improvement
in the manufacture of cotton yarns, we will
first describe the mode the seed cotton is pre-
pared and in which it is sent to market.
Cotton in the seed being over three times its
weight when ginned, and a very bulky article
besides the gin house must be located in, or
very near the lands upon which it is produced.
| The gin is placed in the second story of large
| building and the cotton is taken up to it, that
as the gin takes the fibre from the seed, a brush
wheel, running in the rear Of the gin saws
while it brushes the lint cotton from the saws,
may also throw the FIBRE now in a very open,
straight and flexible condition, into the lint
room on the side of the house below; the
horses or mules, working to a segment wheel
| below, giving motion to the gin. From the lint
room, the cotton is taken in baskets to a box,
under huge screw, and there it is pressed in
to, and becomes bale.
When it reaches the ports, each bale is
sampled by the seller to sell by, and is re-sam-
pied by the buyers-which operations are re-
peated in the foreign ports. So light is the ar
ticle, even after it is pressed as described, that
a steamboat only drawing three feet water may
be piled over with cotton bales until the hurri-
cane deck, as it is called is as completely cover
ed as is the hull and between decks On being
sold in the port, it is almost universally com
pressed at the instance Of the shipmasters, that
| they may stow into their ships greater number
of pounds.
Shipped, via Liverpool, to Manchester, it is
opened in their factories there, and about one
bale of short staple Surat cotton is added to two
| or three of our American cotton, and well mixed
together.
By this process of baling and packing the
cotton, it becomes tangled and matted together,
and the leaf trash, &c, which the Gin did not
extricate, the fibre takes fast hold of; and to
open and disentangle it, and free it from this
trash, leaf &c, which must be done to make
| good warn, the cotton is first run through ma
chine called a picker. Its cylinder reyolves
about 600 times minute, and is armed with
strong iron teeth. 1t is then taken through the
lap machines. These have two or ofener three
beaters, revolving some 2, 100 to :, 200 times in
a minute The fibre is passed through two
of these, in some factories, from whence it is
taken to a set Of carders, and often through ano-
| Their set to finish it for the drawing heads.
The Improvements arise from this: The lap
machine is attached to the gin, and all the pre-
| ferred spinning machinery is so arranged in con-
nection, that from this gin and lap the cotton Is
| taken on through the different machines used in
| the process of spinning, without any handling
from the time it enters the gin until the yarn is
put into bales.
The gin, in the process of Mr.. Henry, is not
required to gin over One-third the quantity gins
now do. For example, a planter now making
one hundred bales of cotton, has some 1905
lbs gnned in day Chat is, clear Of seed and
is three or four months ginning such a crop, of
and on. The same planter beginning to gin or
| the first of September and ending on the first O
March, at about $40 lbs. day, Will ginand spir
| this crop.
Running the gin thus, we exact from it more
OF its natural functions Chat Of the carder tC
cleanse the cotton, than is now expected of it
when the great deSiderataR is to gin rapidly
that the crops can be got off as soon as may be
| to market, and before bad roads interfere will
its hauling.
We have said above that the cotton, wnel
taken by brush wheel off the saw cylinder
was in a very open, straight and flexible condi
ton. In the improvement we are considering
the cotton is taken just in that condition from
the gin, and passed on through the lap and othe
preparations and spun without going into lint
room, being baled or being re-opened.
1t will strike every one very fOrcibly, tina
taking the fibre when thus open and loose, or t,
have the impurities distracted from it, as thi
fibre has not grasped or tangled itself abou
them, the trash and impurities fall easily, fieelr
and naturally from the fbres, precluding tn
necessity Of the tearing, bruising and pulyeriz
ing manipulation it now requires to cleanse am
open it, and which is still very imperfect,
DONE Besides, taking the cotton Just from tn
seed, it is oily and elastic, and works far NOR
kindly into yarns then, than it ever alterward
will. 1t must be here stated, that in runnin
the cotton through the gin as rapidly as it
now run, in the necessarily running it throug
the picker in the cotton factories as to ope
and disentangle it, and the continued sever
manipulation it has to undergo in the furthe
operations Of the extra beating in the lap ma
chine and extra carding, that, besides the as
certained large amount of waste some Il pc
cent, which now flies off in consequence
this treatment, large quantity of broken NJ
mutilated, and intrnsically destroyed fibre en-
tiers into the yarn, and of which it is largel
composed.
And herein stands out in bold relief thi
great improvement that the waste By Nh
Henry's process is diminished at least ten Pc
cent, and the yarn being made of comparativel
unbroken and unmutilated fibre, is intinitel
stronger and finer yarns can be made Of
with greater ease.
We all know the length Of the fibre is wha
gives strength 10 the yarn, and the less its ma
nipulation the less the fibre breaks, and tn
less of the downy substance by which it is ser
rated you remove; and 10 this downy sub
stance may be ascribcd the adhesion or inlimit
Of fibre, for fibre makes the yarn of cotton tn
king Of textiles.
THEN TIE IMPROVEMENT.
l. Presents to the family OF man yarn a
of fifty per cent better than can be manaiac
tured by the present processes, and which Sc
cures to itself the market Of the world, defy
ing competition.
g The machinery can he conveniently ar
ranged on the plantation where cotton is gun
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