Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-06-12
r A MACHINE TO PICK COTTON :
An Invention whieh II lzpecssd .
Rsvolutioni=s Ootton-PicAing.
New Yak Tnune.l

New York TripuDe.1 ~. ~ Z
CharIes T.. Mason, the inventor Of The
Mason cotton harvester, Is . young man,
a native Of South Carolina, and has
spent most Of bis lifewithin slsht Of the
cotton fields, He has been working On
the cotton harvester for nine years He
sid 10 > reporter recently:
The extended use of my machine for
the harvesting of cotton will almost
effect o revolution IN cotton picking, and
il may bring about aconsiderable change
in the price Of cotton. II viii do the
work of thirty or forty men Al present
il costs the planter about $a-o0 70 pick
q bale of cotton; by the use of the har-
vester q bale can be picked at q cost of
$3.50. 1t cost nearly $50, 100000 to
harvest the great cotton crop Of 1882,
and one can see how great viii be the
aggregate amount saved when the crop
is gathered by machinery. None OF
these harvesters have been manufact-
ured for the market yet. We hope TO
have limited number in use next fall.
am making some further improve
ments in the invention The machine
will DO sold for about So"
Is your harvester the only machine
Of the kind in the MARKET"
"Since 1870 100 patents have been
given to the inventors Of contemplating
machines / have never heard Of any
of these many patents except at the
Office IN Washington. There is no cot
ton-picking machine In use. In Texas
they have some kind OF rough machine
which rakes up the fiber, but it has no
discriminating quality, and gathers
wood, leaves, and dirt, and mixes these
foreign matters with the cotton. My
harvester is a machine which resembles
a reaper somewhat; q large number of
slender cylindrical rollers, armed with
teeth which lie below the surface Of the
cylinder, run over every inch Of the cot
compliant, and if the boil has opened
wide enough to indicate that the plant
is ready for picking, the fiber is grasped
by the sunken teeth, and all the other
substances pass through the machine.
Nothing but the cotton is taken. A
negro boy and a mule can gather q crop
of cotton with it. We have protected
our patent in all of the cotton growing
countries Of the world and in Eng
land"
"What will be the effect Of your in
vention upon cotton-growers and labor
ers in the southY''
''In South Carolina my invention will
not be welcomed. The farmers there
look forward to the introduction with
gloomy forebodings. In Texas there
will be an enthusiastic demand for the
harvesters. The South Carolina FARM
ers cannot raise cotton in such ebund-
ance as it is produced in Texas on an
equal amount of land. They have tc
make extensive use Of commercial fer
tilzers, and with the additional expense
do not begin to produce as many pound!
to the acre as the Texas planters do.
In South Carolina there Is o large Negro
population and labor is cheap. The
cotton-grower there can gathcl
all Of his crop at s smaller expens,
than his Texan competitor. In TeyG:
there is not enough field labor and s
large portion Of the crop Il always lost
sometimes fully nAg:half Of il Is no
gathered. There is no doubt that the,
VIII have great advantage over tn
c0tton-growers of South Carolina AM
that they win be able to undersell them
The negroes will have to seek other EN-
ployment There Is always enough els
for them to do; other crops have bee,
neglected in the, south because tn
negroes would do little else than pic
cotton during the season it is harvested
do not fear that the introduction Q
my machine will cause any distres
among the eolored people. ] think the
viii find an abundance of profitable EN-
ploynent in other directions"