St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1897-05-08
ARPs COTTON SPIN.
Southern Staple Continues TO Be
King Of ALL
How 1T Was First spun-Bi1l's Mother
Used to Pick Seed from the Lint
Then Came the Gin and Spin-
ming Jenny.

"Cotton is king!" ! don'k know who
first said that, but it is q fact. It is the
most useful and most important prod
uct in the world and has the most in
| iuenee ON it's commerce. was rurni-
/ mating about this because Of some let
ters of inquiry that from time to time
| / have received concerning cotton. The
last one from an old friend, Col. Saxon,
says he cannot learn from the depart
ment at Washington when cotton cloth
was first imported to this country.
And so T will venture few remarks
on this subject in general, for it is full
OF remarkable facts and illustrates the
kindness Of Providence to His crea-
lures. Providence is always kind and
whenever we need anything He unloeks
another door Of His treasury and says
here it is.
There is no doubt at all that the cot
ton plant was created ''in the begin
ming" and with a design for the use
and benefit of mankind when it should
be needed. Attention was attracted to
| it away back in the centuries. Four
hundred and fifty years before the
Christian era Herodotus wrote about
it as plant bearing heeees more deli
cate and beautiful than those of sheep
and Of the Indians using it for the man
ufacturc Of cloth. From India it was
| introduced into Greece and Rome, and
| Caesar used it for his army tents and
| covered the forum with it. The cotton
R.>f~ -
| celled only by the most perfect ma
chinery OF modern times. We read of
a Hindoo princess who came into
court reception and the king said: go
home-go home, my ehild-you are not
decently covered And she replied:
Father, I have seven suits on" But
they were of cotton muslin SO thin and
delicate that the king could see through
them. The famous muslins of Decca,
in Calcutta, were called webs of woven
wind,'' and when a piece was laid upon
the dew-covered grass it was not dis
cernible.
Imagine the wonder of these fabrics
when there was not a spindle, but the
distaf and only loom that the weaver
carried about with him, setting it up
under a tree and digging a hole in the
ground for his feet to work the treadle.
But the manufacture of cotton for the
common people was smothered during
all these centuries and only wool and
flax We're used for clothing. The an-
cient Egyptians used it to some extent,
spinning it with the distaff and weaE-
ing it with the primitive looms, but
the plant was not cultivated. 1t was
indigenous to that country and the
fleece was gathered from the Wild
stocks. It was not until the tenth CEN
tury that the cultivation began, and
that was by the Moors in Spain. The
teenth century and the English in the
early part of the eighteenth. But it's
use was very limited, for the seed were
in the way.
But now comes the evolution of cot
ton; the revolution that in few years
made it king. Nothing so wonderful
has ever transpired in commerce and
manufacture. There was a conjunc
tion Of the three things that were neces-
sary to bring about this revolution:
The cotton gin by Whitney in 1898, the
spinning jenny by Arkwright in 1857
and the power loom by Cartwright in
1889, adj startled the world about the
same time and gave an impulse to the
growth and use and manufacture of
cotton that was pregnant with great
results. One of these results was the
fixing OF salary as an institution upon
the southern states. Up to that time
it was not considered either safe or
profitable to encourage their importa-
tion from the northern states. But of
course, it took several years for these
inventions to become generally intro
duced. My mother told me that as late
as 1915 she used to spend most of the
winter evenings picking the seed from
the cotton by hand--with half a dozen
or more of the family servants sitting
in circle around the fire. She We'd
with them in trying to excel in the
quantity seeded. This was in Liberty
county in this state, and the cotton was
probably the long staple variety.
Whitney became involved in inter-
minable law suits and his gin, which
was for only the short staple cotton,
was not in general use for many years
after it was invented. My father put
up the first gin in GWinnett county in
1928, and seed cotton was hauled to it
from all the adjacent country. Previ-
Gus to the use of the gin it was con-
sidered fair day S work to seed enough
to make pound of lint. But the gin |
with two attendants picked 400 pounds
in day. Atthat time the old-fashioned
spinning wheel was in general use and
a days work for the spinner was six
euts-a cut being 40 rounds on the
reel, but the first spinning jenny with
one attendant did 80 times as much |
and did it better. Later on it did 1900
times as much. The saving IN weaving
by the power loom was in similar pro-
portion and hence it suddenly came
about that ten men could do the work |
of 10000. No wonder that Hargraves
and Arkwright were driven from their
homes by the spinners and the spin
sters, Excuse me for telling the girls
Just here that a spinster is the feminine
for spinner, and used to mean a mar
riageable girl who had made herself |
eligible aud fifteen to be married by.
spinning and weaving enough cloth for |
her own trousseau, and sheets aud COW |
erlets for the bed and table cloths and /
napkins for the table. This was the
dowry she brought her husband BIT
these inventors went to nottingham /