Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1877-10-04
St1istellameuns &eading.
THE COTTON GIN.
History Of the Invention. Culture Of Cotton.
The Old Method Of Cleaning.

The Old Method Of Cleaning.
The cotton gin was invented in 1898. The
culture of cotton was begun in the Southern
which the older nations of the world were not
prepared, and was suited only to bold and
adventurous people. In 1884, the year after
the close of the Revolutionary war, a vessel
from this country, that had carried to Liver
pool eight bales of cotton, was seized in that
port upon the suspicious charge of illicit
trade, grounded on the presumption that 80
large quantity of cotton could not possibly
have been the production of the United States
Eleven years later than this, in 1895, when
the commercial treaty which bears the name
of Mr. Jay was negotiated between the United
States and Great Britain, one article of the
treaty, as it originally stood, prohibited the
expectation from this country, in American
vessels. of such articles as Great Britain had
previously imported from the West Indies
Mr. Jay was surprised to learn subsequently
that cotton was included in this prohibition,
and still more surprisedto be made acquaint
ed with the fact, of which he was till then
wholly unaware, that cotton was becoming an
article of export from the United States
The culture was continued, amid difficulties
and embarrassments which constantly threat
ed its abandonment, till in 1871 the whole
amount of cotton exported from the United
States was but l89,316 pounds. The next
year, that preceding the invention of the cot
ton gin, the amount exported was diminished
$4,000 pounds. There was, in fact, from the
incipiency of the culture to the period of this
invention, no indication of any tendency to an
increase of the production. The chief diff
Guilty in the prosecution of the enterprise had
been found to be the extremely slow and la
borious process of cleaning the green-seed cot
ton, or separating it from the seed and 80
serious had this embarrassment come to be re-
garded, that the cultivators were generally in
clined to yield to it as an insuperable objec-
ton to what had been the grand design Of the
undertaking, namely, the raising Of cotton for
the European market.
The green cotton seed is that which is COM
monty known as the upland or bowed Geor-
gia cotton, by which name it is distinguished
from that produced in the islands and low dis
tricts near the shore, called sea island, or
black seed cotton. The latter is the finest
kind, and derives its name from the circum.
stance of its having been the first cultivated
in this country in the low sandy islands on
the coast of South Carolina. 1t will not
flourish at distance from the sea, and its
quality gradually deteriorates as it is removed
from "the salutary action of the oceans
spray" 1t has a longer fiber than other cot
tons, and is of peculiarly even and silky
texture, which qualities give it its superior
market value. The expression Showed. which
is applied to the upland cotton, is descriptive
of the means that we're employed for clean.
ing it, or loosening the. ;fiiament from the
seed, previous to the invention of the cotton
gin. The process was similar to ths' m
ployed by hatters for beating up wool to the
proper consistency for felting. Strings, at
tached to bow, were brought in contact with
a heap of uncleaned cotton and struck so as
to cause violent vibrations, and thus to open
the locks of cotton and permit the easy sepa-
ration of the seed from the fiber. The clean
ing was likewise done wholly by hand, the
work of the bow-stripgs being scarcely more
efficient than that accomplished by the fin.
gers of the slaves. In either case the process
was discouragingly tedious and slow. Whit
ney's cotton-gin overcame all this difficulty
and furnished the means of separating the
seed and cleaning the cotton with such econ.
omy of labor and time as at once to give a
spring to the agricultural industry of the
South, and an impetus to what in few years,
comparatively, became one of the most i'm
portant branches of the commerce and man
ufactures of the world.