The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-25
A Yankee to Whom the South owes Much.

A Yankee to Whom the South Owes Much. Boston Globe.
 The farm in Georgia, on which Eli Whit bought by a country club named in his hon. or. interest is being revived in the life of this Yankee genius who revolutionized the cotton industry in 1792.
 whitney's career has always been a source of inspiration to inventors though many of them have had bitter an experience as he had so far as receiving much money for the result of their work was concern ed
 He was born in Massachusetts in 17e5, was graduated at Yale and had a rare lit- arary talent as we'll as mechanical ingenu- ity. He invented several devices. includ- ing a gun. The farm on which he expert mented while constructing and peFfecting the gin was owned by John Phinizy' si. who ney's work and gave him the use of the premises.
 worthless. because of the seed which had to he picked out by hand or pushed out hy rollers: It was such slow worK tnst ad MT. whitney built a dam across small stream and ran the first gin by water. The dam is standing to this day and the water of the stream still turns gin, but it Is a great improvement on the first one.
 It is interesting to recall how Mir. Whit Yankee schoolmaster." happened to go to work on the farm. which Is four miles from the court house of Augusta Ga, ana set up his gin in, an old frame building on the banks of Rocky Creek.
 A careful investigation of the data on first visited Savannah much had already been accomplished in the way of creating conditions for the more economical produc- appointed by the state of Georgta, charged with the duty of causing machine to be the cotton from the seed MT. Josiah Wat kins had in operation @ crude machine sim liar in many respects to the more nearly
 The substitution of the saw for wire spikes seems to have been first made bv Colonel o. A. Bull of LaGrange. Ga, and Holmes of Fairfield County, $. C., and It was this improvement, more than any other one thing. that put the cotton-gtn in shape to become such an im9ortant factor in the development of the cotton industry.
 While the times were ripe for the tn- vention of the cotton gin-according to this same authority-and many. persons were working at the problem, and while the gin would probably have ben invenIed even had whitney never gone to the South. he was the right man quickly to take up the suggestion of the Georgia state comisSiom rnd nn the problem himself. heard of Holmes in- provement and went to see 1t; ana 10 nIs what he had gathered from various other workers on the same problem.
 The result was the Whitney gin, and the inventor stands at the head of the list os those whose inventions have been of beneftt to mankind. Tn the invention of the cot ton gin there Is glory enough to immortaiiiSe iS the credit of others who did valuable and essential work in the development Of what
 The usefulness of the cotton gin may be realized from a few statistics. In 1I9l, two years before the gin was successfuly operated. the total exports Of cotton rom rom the United States were 37s bales; the next year the exports were ss2 bales. in lSlO they were lss.O00 bales. When whitney died in 1925 the exports had increased to 4o0. GOO bales, and in 1907 they were s.1oS.- 4o9 bales. and 1t was his invention that pOasible It was his invention that made cotton planting profitable and the crop last year was 1l.26l'l6S bales worth moro than $500. 900. 900. ,.
 MT Whitney realized comparatively little from his invention. and 1t was used very generally by planters without his author ity. for royalties in those days could not he collected Some day there will prooa- bly be a monument in the South to his memory He certainly deserves one