The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1909-06-29
COTTON BRGG|NG.
sRoULD BE USED TO PACK THE
AMERICAN STAPLE.
No Other Cotton in the World is


Packed in Jute Bagging Except
American Cotton.
The following article from the pen
of Mr. Barvie Jordan, whom many
of our readers will remember as
the president of the Cotton Associa-
ton, will be read with interest by
every man who makes and sells cot
tom:
Since the days of the Farmers
Alliance when such heroic effort
was made to displace jute bagging
with the use of cotton bagging South
ern farmers have prayed that the
time might yet come when cotton
bales could be satisfactorily and
economically covered with cotton
cloth.
Seventeen years have passed since
the legions of the Farmers Alliance
waged war with the jute trust, were
defeated and had to surrender again
to. the powerful control of the Jute
bagging monopoly. In looking back
over the difficulties with which the
cotton growers had to contend in
that memorable contest to ascertain
the weak points in the armor of the
farmers which led to their defeat, it
is now openly admitted that ne
trouble was with the bale and the
arbitrary tare assessed against its
covering, which gave the victory to
the iute trust.
The continued use of the large,
! cumbersome plantation bale which
must necessarily be roughly handled
with hooks in transit from the gin
merry to the spinner and the deduc-
tion by the cotton trade of s per
cent, or 80 pounds from the gross
weight of the bales for tare, has
made it practically and economically
impossible for the farmers to use
ibagging which could not stand rough
usage and was heavy in weight.
With the introduction and adop-
tion;of local gin compression, which
within the last year or two has been
rendered practicable through the in
vention of modern machinery, the
use Of cotton bagging as covering
for the new style bales will be made
not only possible but preferable by
both growers, and spinners. Ia ad-
dition to this, the Liverpool and Man
chester Cotton associations have
recently passed resolutions lifting
the embargo of the arbitrary six
per cent. deduction for tare, in SO far
as it relates to gin compressed cot
ton, and have agreed to buy all such
cotton by actual net weight.
The New England spinners have
not only agreed to the action OF the
Asoreigp associations, but will pay an
extra premium to the farmers for
gin compressed bales in order to Oh
FER additional inducements to reform
the present primitive and wastefui
methods of bailing and handling
= American cotton. The twentieth
century new style bale, which is now
being compressed at many gin pianes
in the South, is neat 500-pound bale
of cotton, of the square type car
rying a density Of 80 pounds 10 tne
cubic foot, about one-third the size
of the. Ordinary plantation BALE ana
which will load car to Its carry
ing capacity at the initial point Oh
shipment, to be billed direct TO tne
manufacturer without loss of time or
decomposition in transit.
All domestic and foreign spinners
are unanimous in their objection 70
the use of jute bagging as a cover
ing for American cotton, No other
cotton in the world is covered with
jute bagging except the cotton raised
in this country. Jute bagging is not
only heavy in weight, makes the
tare and freight on same unneces-
sarily high and expensive to the
growers, but in taking such bagging
off the bales at the mills consider
able amount of the lint Is detached
from the bales, which is either lost
entirely or sold as waste at two cents
per pound.
In addition to the jute fibre mixes
with the lint fibre and causes no end
of trouble and material losses to the
spinners of the fine yarns. 1t is now
admitted by spinners generally that
cotton bagging can be taken on the
bales at the mills without any loss
of lint; that the bagging can be de-
corticated with modern machinery
now in use at the mills, reconyerted
into lint and woven back into yarns
and 10th. This would give an ad-
ditional value to cotton bagging which
would enable the spinners to pay a
rebate to the farmers for using
cotton bagging and thereby greatly
reduce the cost of bagging to the cot
ton growers.
A satisfactory bagging can be made
from the cheap, low grade staples
of cotton, and experiments are now
being conducted along that line by
some of the largest cotton mills IN
this country The use of cotton bag
ging therefore as a covering FOR
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