The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-09-09
COTTON AFTER IT IS PICKED
CARELESS INDIFFERENCE OF
THE FARMER IN HANDLING 1T.
While 1t Is Growing He Watches 1t
Like He Would Sick Child,
and the Sight of a Bug Gives

Inv AEO NOuIu al fSlCk NuiIU,
and the Sight of Bug Gives
Him a Nervous Chill.
Every year cotton farmers worry
themselves almost into nervous pros
tration over the matters of seed Sc
lection, excess of moisture, drought,
firing, army worms, rust, boil
weevil and dozen other ills to which
the growing plant is subject. But
when the staple has come to maturity
and been harvested Tin a more or
less careless and wasteful manner)
what do they do? From the boil to
the loom, or to the ship-side, do they
watch it as carefully and as jealous
ly as they do from the seed to the
boil? Not much! Beginning with
the picking and running through to
the final marketing there is tire
mendOus amount of waste, roughly
estimated to amount to more than a.
million dollars per crop. The clean"
picker is the exception rather than
the rule. The average picker, hust-
ling to get out the greatest number
of pounds in the shortest space of
time, leaves many ripe bolls I'M
plucked to take the weather and
drops other open cotton upon the
ground to be trampled and lost. In
hauling to the gin houses much more
cotton is lost through careless hand
ling. In ginning modern methods
have made the losses inconsiderable,
which is also true of baling. But
after the fleece is baled then follow
the greatest and most inexcusable
losses of all. The baling is not care
fully done, in such manner as to
preserve the contents of the pack
age in the best possible condition.
There is no standard or uniformity in
size of press boxes, NO standard of
density of compression and no stand
ard rule for covering that will keep
out moisture and dirt and prevent
what may for convenience be called
leakage.
The farmer will watch his growing
crop as carefully as he would a sick
child, and then, after the cotton is
ginned, permit it to be badly baled
and rolled out into the open to take
the sun and rain as they come. 1t
is not an uncommon sight to see hun
dreds, even thousands, of bales of
cotton parked" in the open air at
a shipping point, the bales ragged
and unkempt, and without pTotec-
ton against water or fire; and the
same sort of thing is true on a great |
many farms. The producer seems |
to labor under the impression that
his duty to this crop ends when he |
has got it picked and baled. He will |
see the bales get soaked in heavy |
rain without turning a hair" or
he will see the bales rolled through |
mud-puddles without entering a pro- |
test. But if he were to see a bug |
in his growing crop he would have |
a nervous chill.
Bad baling inflicts a tremendous !
loss upon the cotton growers every |
year 1t is unreasonable to suppose !
that spinners will pay as much for
bale that is dirty and wet and rot
ten on the outside as they will for a
bale that is clean and dry. 1t is |
against the very common-sense of
things that they should do so. In
dian cotton nearly always reaches the
spinner in excellent condition, be-
cause great care is taken in the bal
ing of it and the bales are always
kept in good order. When the In
dian bale is broken open at the mill !
there are not ten, twenty or thirty
pounds to be thrown out as unfit for
spinning, as is very often the case
with American bales.
IV#ofopf oocIy;Dn NJ cotton nf |
course, costs a little more than poor
packing, and there is some expense
attached to the erection of sheds.
But these added costs are, in the
long run, real economies. The Morn
ing News has touched upon these
matters many times, but it seems a
slow process to get the farmers to
fully appreciate the Importance of
them-Savannah News.