The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-02
Company's Activities Grow Out of Invention Per- fected by R. s. Munger in 1883
SMALL BEGINNING
 GREW RAPIDLY AS DEMAND INCREASED
Experts Have Been Sent Into All Foreign Coun- tries to Demonstrate Eff ficiency of Gins

With history that appears in spots to have been taken from Edward Mott Wooley's stories of "Other People s Business" the Continental Gin company of Birmingham during it's 1T years of experience has reached out into the mar kets of the world withs master hand,
 and has secured strong foothold in practically every civilized country on the
 face of hte globe.
 | The Continental Gin company is the outcome of an inventors failure to sell that which he invented. In 1883 R. s. Munger, the vice president of the Conti-
 mental Gin company, perfected an inven- l.tion which revolutionized the industry of cotton ginning. Briefly described, it consists of a pneumatic elevator which 1 takes the cotton out of the wagon or | bin, lifts it above the gin, cleans and 1 delivers it upon spiked belt which dis | tributes it into a battery of feeders, where it is thoroughly cleaned again be- | fore entering the gins, from which it | is delivered into a common lint flue at- tached to a battery condenser; thence it is delievered in a continuous bat and fed automatically into a double press box. | In other words, the cotton passes from the wagon to the press in one continu-
 ous operation, in the course of which | 1t is thoroughly cleaned.
 STARTED SMALL PLANT
 ] Mir Munger at the time he made the invention was residing at Mexia, Tex, Failing in his efforts to sell the idea to gin manufacturers he established a I small plant at Dallas in 1884 and began to | n xa Inc | of the invention was immediately recog- nized and the demand for it grew enor- mously. Three years later the Munger | Improved Cotton Gin Manufacturing com pany was organized at Dallas. In 1892
 the Northington- Munger-Pratt Gin com
 pany was organized to supply the terri l tory east of the Mississippi river and a huge plant located in Birmingham Also
 about this time MT. Munger invented the 1 Ginners' compress and developed the idea
 of compression at the gin.
 l So important to the production of eot-
 ton was the Munger system that the mas- ter minds of the gin manufacturing world foresaw the necessity for increased production of cotton gins, and accord 1 ingly. in 1899, the Continental Gin com
 pany was organized. This company ac- quired by purchase the plants and patents or the Daniel Pratt company at Pratt | vile, the Munger Improved Cotton Gin Manufacturing company of Dallas, Tex; the Northington- Munger Pratt company | of Birmingham, the Smith Sons Gin and Machine company of Birmingham, the | Winship Machine company of Atlanta, and the Eagle Cotton Gin company of l Bridgewater, Mass.
 With central offices in Birmingham, the company's operations extend through out the civilized world, over the cotton belt of the United States and out to l Mexico, Central and South America, l Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the east and west coasts of Africa, India, Russia. | Turkey, Persia, the Philippines Austra- 1 lia, China, Hawaii and to the imperial valley of southern California.
 | For quite a nuember of years small single gins had been furnished for han ding the Brazilian crop. The first at- tempt to gain a foothold with complete system outfits was made about 10 years
 ago. The ginning machinery was sent
 to the South American company, accom- panied by corps of factory experts, who l remained there six months going into the details of the operation of the ma