San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-03-23
Cotton Picking by Machinery.
by Pro-. Q. v. ililey

In persuing the article on Cotton
and It's Future-An Opportunity for
Inventors as appearing in the Scienti-
fc american Supplement Of February
IL, 1882, one acquainted WITH the cot
ton country and the actual work Of
harvesting the crop, cannot but be
struck with the Improbable nature
OF most OF the notions presented.
That the devices described and the
ideas advanced are chiefly those of men
unfamiliar with the requirments which
they have attempted to meet is easily
seen. 1t is surprising to notice that
most of the cotton. picking inventions,
rs shown, are the product Of Northern
minds, and this may account for, their
being so foreign to the work which
they were designed to perform.
Three principles have been en-
ployed. One is that OF raking of the
cotton by points which are coarse or
fine, and grouped eomb.like or brush
like; the second is that of applying
spindles on which the fieer is to adhere
and wind into rolls; while the third is
that OF suction by an exhaust apparatus.
These principles, as applied in hand
pickers for taking one boil at time,
are inferior to the bare hand alone, and
only offer super huous complication
and expense.
As used in large machines to be
hauled over the rows, all 30 far con-
trived seem better calculated to injure
and waste cotton than to gather and
save it. The inver tors do not seem to
have taken into consideration the fact
that the crop does not all open at once,
and that it must be gathered by series
of successive pickings, at each of which
only a portion Of The entire crop is
open.
They appear to proceed on the err
roneous idea that the whole crop ma
lures and opens at the same time, SO
that it can be gathered all at once,
while the plants may be dealt with,
injured, or destroyed as though they
were of no further value.
No planter will admit to his field a
machine to pick the first crop that will
damage the second, or to gather the
second if it will impair the "top-crop."
Hence planters have no use whatever
for such contrivances as have so far
been patented.
Where the raking pr nciple is intro
duced in large machines the plants are
sacrificed and torn in a manner not
allowable, while spiAdles which scratch
or drag through the plants must SINH
larly break off the branches, leaves,
and unopened bolls.
If those machines which employ the
suction principle have been made to do
less injury than the others to the after
crop, they do the work little better and
possess in the highest degree u fault
common to all, which is that of taking
no with the fiber fragments of the
foliage and bolls, besides dirt, etc, thus
greatly imparing the market value Of
the cotton. i.
The fact is the question Of harvesting
cotton by machinery is most difficult
one, which, like that of gathering the
great corn crop of the North by similar
means, has batfied the best genius OF
our country, and, unless some other
principles than those in the machines
thus far patented can be introduced,
the problem must remain unsolved.
Let those who wish to exercise their
ingenuity in this direction not forget
that cotton harvesting extends over q
period of two or three months in any
given field that the cotton when gath
cred is valuable in proportion as it is
clean, 1. e., free from leaf, dirt, trash,
etc., aud that no machinery in which
these conditions are ignored stands any
chance of superseding the nimble fin
gers of ayoung darby.