Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-29
COTTON IS UTILIZED.
How the Big Problem Is Solved in
Texan Fields and Factories.
TWO OF ITS PIONEER PHASES.
Eagging and Oil Experiments on Trial in
the Town of sherman.
A pITTsBURGER SETS WHEELS GOING


featuring. Two Ohio men who came down
to furnish the skill for new enterprise
were hanged for their hardihood. That was
the Tellico incident.
Some of the leading citizens of Central
Texas got together and agreed that Texas
should make her own lumber, grind her own
flour and spin her own cotton. They
selected Tellico for the location of lumber,
-four and cotton manufacturing. They
deputized the Hon. Thomas w. McRae to
20 North and buy the equipment. They
contracted with the Ohio men to come down
and set the mills going Mr.. McRae started
North with the money to buy saws, stones
and spin dies On the way he met the
eminent statesman OF that day, Robert
Tombs. Mr.. Tombs persuaded McRae that
wild land In North Texas was better thing
than cotton manufacturing. Mr.. McRae
invested in 200 600 acres of land instead OF
in looms The Ohio men came down &C
cording to contract and went to Teliico to
set I'D the mills. There were no mills to
set up.
strung Up as Northern Abolitionists.
Without waiting to in yestigate the stories
these men told, a mass meeting of Texans
decided that the strangers must be abolition
lists and hung them. After life was extinct
papers arrived from the capitalists who had
planned the mills showing the arrange
ment under which the men had come.
Only one of the pro moters of the Tellico
manufacturing scheme, Judge A. B.
Norton, of Dallas, is still living. There
are many Te1aus, not old men, either, who
remember very we'll the unfortunate mis-
take that was made in the reception of the
skilled labor from Ohio.
Things have changed since then. The
man who will come to Texas now and start
q new industry will get backing and
banquet instead of a rope with a slip knot.
At Sherman the people are little prouder
to-day of q six months manufacturing e1-
pertinent than Of any other one thing with
in their community. The experiment is in
the manufacture of seamless bags.
Raw cotton at the rate of five bales day
is taken from the farmers wagons at one
end OF the factory. Finished bags at the
rate of 5000 a day are shipped out at the
other end. Sherman put $50, 900 into this
experiment. A fine brick building, with
room for double the present capacity of
looms, was erected in the outskirts Of the
city, It is one-story, with great windows
letting in all of the light and air there is
Provision is made for pumping in cold air
in summer and warm air in winter The
very latest machinery and contrivsnces
such as automatic feeders for the furnaces
and a superb electric light plant, are in
cluded in the equipment.
Evidences of Brain Work Everywhere.
Labor is saved at every turn. In the
cotton room. where the raw material is re-
ceived, a picking and breaking machine re-
duces the staple to sheets. Then comes the
carding engine, with its myriads of little
teeth. Strengthening out the fiber Six rolls
pass into one, and are mixed and long drawn
out Next comes twisting together of
strands and more drawing out to get the
6ber so distributed that its greatest strength
may be obtained. Again and again the
strands are mingled and twisted and drawn
out until the string which comes from the
last mixing represents a portion of each of
- rolls.
The next step is the spinning. Three
rolls of the string are strung into warp
yarn at the rate OF seven and one-half
inches of yarn for each inch of the rolls.
And now come the looms By a peculiar
double up-and-down movement of tie loom
the long seamless bag gradually evolves
from the mIngling of the countless threads
and the flying shuttle. When the desired
length is reached the shuttle is stopped for
a few movements of the loom and then an
other bag with seamless bottom and seam
less sides is begun. The bag comes from
the loom completed, with the exception of
the turning down of the top edge and q
seam by machine to prevent raveling.
The superintendent OF the Sherman fac
tory, after only six months running, laws
down the bags of Manchester, n. IL, beside
those from his OWL looms and invites COM
parison by microscope.
Cottonseed Oil Another Industry.
The man who shipped the 6rst cottonseed
oil cake to Great Britain lives in Sherman
His name is Captain Thomas Forbes. He
was in the cotton business in New Orleans
many years ago. At that time the use of the
cottonseed for oil and cake was scarcely
known.
Somewhere up the country big planter
occasionally ground q few hundred bushels
of seed in a rude wav, and sent it in the
form Of oil cake down to New Orleans. 81
had seen some of these small lots of cake
said Captain Forbes, land it struck me the
cake might be used to fatten cattle in Great
Britain. An English gentleman was visit
Ing in New Orleans about that time / told
him of the cake and what L thought could
be done with it. He said he had never
seen anything of the kind, and was quite
curious about it. 1 told him I'd send over
some, but when I came to get the cake dis
covered that it was harder to do than had
thought BY picking up a small lot here
and small lot there 1 collected 40 or 80
tons and sent it over.
The business proved to be very profit
able. Some of the scientific men on the
other side took hold of the cake and an
alyzed 1t. They said, Here we can get
more oil out of it than the Yankees do So
they got up machinery, subjected the oil
cake to another process and then fed the
cake to their cattle. 1t was in 1867 made
this first shipment of oil cake to Great
Britain. The business was even at that
time profitable. But it is only in the last
10 years or so that the oil and cake from the
cotton seed has come into such general use"
A Pittsburxer starts IA Seed Mill.
The largest cottonseed mill in the world
is rising from its foundations on the prairie |
east OF Sherman. 1t will eat up 432 tons of |
cottonseed in "a hours That means the |
seed which grows with over 300 bales of |
cotton. A half ton of seed to bale of |
cotton is the average
Something more than a dozen wears ago a |
young Pittsburger, who had a good school |
ing in machinery and its uses, came to |
Sherman and started a little seed mill in
the outskirts Of the city.
That" said Banker Randolph, one of
the solid capitalists of Sherman, "was al
most before we, who had been here a life
time, knew there was such a thing as oil in
cottonseed. Mr.. Tassey started in a very
modest way. The first thing we knew
about him he was making oil out there.
He kept on independently increasing his
plant and business. After he had made an
eminent success of it we formed stock
company and backed him with all the
money he wanted. But J. c. Tassey is en-
titled to the credit of giving Sherman the