The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-12-03
vACUUM.PICKED COTTON.

| Cotton is now gatherd in the I'M
perial Valley Of California by a de-
vice that works on the principle of
1.-THE vacuum-cleaner. 1t is asserted
that cotton picked by it is cleaner
than that picked by hand and that
by its aid an inexperienced laborer
can work three or four times as fast
as experts in the old methods. The
machine weighs but 1000 pounds,
light skeleton are a 3O0-pound, To-
land is easily moved. Around Its
horsepower engine, suction pump
for the nozzles, and centrifugal
separator for parting the cotton from
LEAVES, sticks, and other debris taken
in by the picking nozzfes. These
nozzles are five in number, at the
| end of light. I8-foot rubber pipes
connected with an 8-foot tube rum
ming transversely over the machine.
TO quote from an article In The
Scientific American New York, Oc-
tober 49,:
"The powerful suction-pump on
the machine endeavors constantly TO
keep the picking pipes in q state OF
vacuum, wherefore, when the nozzle
is passed over row Of bolls, the
suction picks up the cotton and car
ries it through the pipe and to the
centrifugal separator. Here a pow
erful fan with hollow vanes, de-
parture in fan construction, separ-
ates the cotton from the leaves, the
sticks, and the notes. which are not
desirable and finally drives the sep
arated mass through curved pipe
at the rear. The leaves and notes
are driven out through perforations
in the top of the pipe, the cotton
driven through to the sack or bas-
ket at the end.
Each one Of the five picking noz-
les and rubber pipes is handled by
a man, and the speed OF action de-
ponds on the skill he acquires. A
single sweep of the patent nozzle
across a row of the white blossoms
| is alleged to pick them clean, the
time being about that required to
l'pick one boil.
The rate Of picking cotton by hand
seems to vary from 100 pounds to
200 pounds per day-the record be-
ling made by colored person who
picked 900 pounds in a day, but did
It on the run, and without attempt
ing to do more than get the easiest
reached. Also cotton-pickers are
wasteful, the waste running as high
as SO per cent. of the crop, and the
amount, according to the govern
'ment reports, running into hundreds
of millions. 1t is human nature to
pick the bolls on the top, and to let
those laying in the back-breaking
strata at the bottom Of the bush re-
main to sleep in the Southern sum
shine.
1.-THE persons running the Cali
fornia machine, described and illus
trated, claim that five men with the
machine can pick 1000 pounds per
man per day Of ten hours, of 5000
pounds per day, and that 1t does q
clean job instead of a wastful one,
because the nozles do not mind being
required to get down into the bottom
of the plant.
"rhere remain plenty Of woodpiles
for the Ethiopian to hide in, and 1t
may be that the machine without
brains, even tho directed by human
hands at the very nozles, will still
not pick with the proper discrimina-
ton, but the fact remains that this
is the first one on record to reach
even the present stage of hopeful
ness.
"As cotton authorities allege that
last year not far from million per-
sons were engaged in the harvesting
of cotton, the machine able to do
the work of five times the number Of
men needed to operate it, and to do
1t with little labor on the part of
the crew, might well be an invention
20 oar;ouc national uoodb s3-tlt