New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1857-01-19
Cotton Spinning on the Plantation.
LETTER FROM MIR. HENRY, THE INvEf

MOBILE, Dec. 80, ls56.-Editor Columbus En-
quJcr: am happy to perceive such. q spontaneous
interest in my invention as your editorial eylnces
and that of mauy others who have kindly noticed it,
and your concluding paragraph is as profoundly cor
rect as it is enlightened-that if it succeeds. it will
do more for the South than all the political theories
and commercial specuntions Of the day, and will at
once strengthen our Institutions and greatly enhance
the prosperity of our already favored section
Letus examine its chances of success You OBJ
serve how confident speak of the performance of my
invention. 1T may be worl, Of some difficulty to
convince Others ofits practicabty but it is not i'm
possible and let me Illustrate to you, that through
you others may comprehend it, and hence let me beg
your patient observation of my remarks
You know the gin gins cotton at the plantation
and the feecy lint is thrown into the ntroom. You
know at the cotton factories cotton is received in
the bales, and is there spun into yarns, as well as
woven.
If you will step down to one of your cotton fac
tories, you will see that the hale of cotton is there
first run through willow picker to open and dis
entangle it, and from the nt-room into which the
picker casts it, the cotton is brought out and weighed
to the apron of lap machine "a spreader and beater
as it is caed) The cotton passes Though this ma.
chine and comes out at the other end in sheet, and
is rolled by the machine around cylinder and in this
state the cotton is called lap This lap is fitted to
place in front of a carder, and when lap for each
card in the factory is thus placed the carers placed
in rows are put in operation.
From each cardcr the silver is taken by railway
to drawinghead placed at the end of the row, and
this drawinghead into can before it. And at this
drawing.head the process of spinning truly begins
(back of this being technically called the Prepare
ton )as here the elongation of the fbres has com
menced. The cans, which accumulate at these draw
ingheads, are taken and placed before other drawing
heads and the sivers from certain number of cans
are passed through a head, there they are doubled
again and fall into another in front. From these
the aightened and atenuated sivers pass
to the speeder and become moving, from thence to
the spinning frames, where the yarn is finished from
thence to the reels and then is baled You observe
shaft passes through the factory, which is moved by
water or steam power in cotton factories, and to this
shaft each of these machines geared by bands,
when is desired either all of the machines
put into operation by this shaft.
Here you have presented the disconnected opera
tons of the gin at the plantation, and the spinning
machinery at the factory.
Suppose you take an ordinary gin to your market
house there bring from of your cotton factories
a lap machine, Tor speeder and beateD half dozen
cardng machines with their railway and drawing
heads, a drawng-frame and cans spceder frame,
and three spinning frames, and arranging them fac
tory fashion, the gin in front, gear them all to
shaft Ito run some ten or twelve feet from the ground
through the market-honse) arrange horse power or
steam engine, if you please, to work the shaft.
The first question which arises is, is there any
more difficulty to gear that gin to this shaft to
it to act here, where and while other machinery is
desired TO operate any more than there is to cause
the others to operate? Certainly not.
Suppose you put seed cotton into the gin and set
it in motion from the fue in the lack Of the gin,
the leecv fbres will be thrown to Tie other end OF
the market house.
Here is where I come in, and instead of letting
this eecy cotton be thrown to the other end Of your
market house. take the apron from your lap machine
bring this machine snug up to the ine of the gin,
and by peculiar arrangement throw the cotton into
this lap machine: and the lap machine being gesrcd
to the same shaft as soon asthe cotton enters this
lap machine, set it in motion, and the cotton passes
through it, and the lap accumuIates place them
to the carders, and then all goes on as the cotton
factory by my process.
The working of my combination and arrangement
of my machinery and its results assure yon are as
positive as the laws of mechanics, or the laws Of
positive science. It is not theory or speculation,
and am not dreaming and the planter who does
not or will not understand it, is in a Dire I'm, az it
were, tancyng it too good to be true will but awaken
to the reality. For have enquiries from the largest
cotton planters in all the cotton States already, re-
spectng it. many offers to buy States and counties,
and feel like fisherman with wclltried hook
aud line, and smartsized fish on it. lie can afford
to let it play awhile, as he knows his fish i safe.
1t is my desire to get the machinery arranged to
suit the smaller planters, agreeahly to the hope you
express, and, one way or another, we will do it,
think. 1t was the smaller planters you had in your
mind when you wrote the paragraph that no planter
would Invest his money in machinery expensive,
without satisfying himself Of its prGccabty.' Ger
talniy they Will not and think know too much OF
my own and human nature to suppose they would.
NO mechanic will doubt bat the cotton can be con-
Quoted from the GIN to the lap and if that is CON
coded, the p0cucabil!ty Of my invention is, also,
Then, if machinery costing $1,000 Or less, ar
ranged in connection with the gin and run by six
mules will gin and spin 100 bales of 500 pounds OF
cotton, between LIST september and LIST March, into
yarns, and TINS machinery to lie attended by five opc-
latlyes from eight to twelve years old, one twelve to
fourteen and three Old women or men Gt crippled,
will answer) and this machinery and these opera
tlves (tOr we cannot call them hands, in this time
sN months, Will produce as much as the twenty-five
Or thirty hands, the Plantation twelve to fifteen
mules oYeFseer and planter altogether, did in twelve
mn tD