Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-07-21
PREPARING COTTON
For Market-False Packing and False
Ginning Reduces the Price OF the
Staple at the
Expense of The Planier-The Remedy
Lies in Ginning and Packing Being
Done by Experts.
To the Editors of the Appeal:

To the Editors OF the Appeal:
HARRIsoN, MISS, July 1S.-Your edito-
rial on the subject of preparing cotton fol
market was opportune. Several years ago /
published in our county paper a remedy for
the evil alluded to. Recently Mr.. Alexander
read paper before the cotton spinners OF
New England suggesting the same remedy.
Our farmers, as a general thing, are not
readers, even of the newspapers, consequently
for anything to reach them through that
avenue requires that il should be published
time and again. To begin with, l will say
"lalse packing" is misnomer-false ginning
is the terra. Nine-tenths of the ginhouses in
the cotton country are constructed as they
were forty years ago; u.s., the press is stu
ated from forty to hundred feet from the
lint-room, and the cotton is carried in baskets
or in "arms" from the latter to the former
Frequently, when the least wind is blowing,
the prettiest, lightest cotton is blown on the
ground and, of course, becomes dirty" and
"trashy." This is always picked up and put
in the bale. The value of this cotton is often
triHe; but when put in the bale dirty and
trashy not unfrequently reduces the price of
50O-pound bale S. to $40. This is the
"penny wise and pound foolish" packing syz-
tenn. This, however, is nothing compared
with the loss entailed on the farmer by the
"lint-room" and inferior machinery and
in ginning. Two-thirds of the gins used in
the country are "rattle- traps which, in
the first place, stake off" only about
four-fifths of the lint from the seed. This is
cut and mapped" SO that it is worth from
two to three cents per pound less than
smoothly gInned cotton. But the heaviest
appendsge, the lint-room. From this room,
which condensers have rendered useless,
comes what cotton men call "gin-falls," and
great is the fall in the saleable value of the
cotton when it is STRUCK" and this gin-tall
will be in the bale as long as the lint-room
is attached to the ginhouse-and the lint
room will be attached TO the ginhouse so
long as every farmer who makes forty or
100 bales of cotton thinks he must have
a gin; and that time will end when we lose
the smart" farmers who years ago, when the
was first introduced into
this country, spurned it with contempt and
,aid the cheapest cotton-planter" was the
$1,000 one. The process of separating the
lint cotton from the seed is just as different
from raising" cotton as the making of flour
rom wheat differs from growing the latter.
What do you suppose the wheat-growers of
he great Northwest would say to "sm art" |
armer who would advise every wheat |
grower who raised as much as 1000 bushels |
VI wheat to erect mill and grind his own |
wheat? Do you suppose he would kill him |
" have him put In the lunatic asylum? |
Yet the cases are analogous. Nine-tenths
# the farmers in our country rent their |
Snds, or "farm on shares" With their tenants,
md the very few plantations upon which |
here are no ginhouses rent for as much per
ere IS those which have the ginhouses
Then the question very naturally arises,
Fhy have them? Cui bono? To pursue this
ubject to its legitimate end, to speak of the
dvantages of having public gins with i'm
roved machinery, linters, cotton-seed hull
re-, etc, would require more of your valuable
pace than desire TO appropriate. Suffice
to say it Is not false packing, but false
inning that is injuring the reputation of
american cotton, and doing as much as any
hing else to impoverish the cotton farmer
he first lesson to be learned in domestic
usiness or political economy is the sdvan-
ages arising from the division of labor. 1t
likes, believe, sixteen men to make pin.
Would it be wise for one man to attempt 10
AXE his labor sixteen times more profitable
Y doing all the work himself? But enough
q this subject. Our crops, refreshed by
agrant showers, look promising, especially
Urn. By siinting stock, as we have but few
ogs, our county will have enough corn to
st them until May or June next. If a
Efficient amount of oats, wheat, etc., Is sown
lis fall the hiatus from June 10 October can
spanned. WIN. RUFFIN.