Norwich bulletin., 1921-08-25
NORWICH ROTARIANS HEAR TALK
 ON COTTON AT WEEKLY LUNCHEON

the present time there are more than S5,0oo,oo in the United States.
 Almost all cotton comes to the mill in compressed bales of about 800 pounds gross. The cotton is condensed to about S5 pounds per cubic foot at the eonpres, wrapped in coarse iute bag ginS, and circuled with iron hoops. There are other forms of pacing but what concerns us, Is that the cotton comes to the mill in a compressed form and must be loosened up before any pro cess work can be done Of course the bale must first be opened by removing the straps and bagging, then the layers of cotton as they are taken from the bale are fed to an apron of a machine called bale breaker. This machine does nothing more than to pick the compress ed cotton apart and deliver it in small tufts to the cleaner where by centrifugal force the sand and part of the leaf Is thrown out. From here it Is taken by vacuum, usually, through pipe line 10 the picker room of the plant where 1t really starts to be made into yarn. As the cotton enters the picker room 1t falls onto a belt back of the machine called pickers or lappers and is delivered in equal amounts to all the machines. The function of these machines Is to beat out the coarser impurities and deliver l the cotton in rolls of batting called laps. | In the first or breaker picker the tufts l are thoroughly whirled and pounded over ' grid bars by rollers or beaters and then compressed into continuous sheeS | or lap Of a given weight per yard l which is wound on steel rod and when | of the proper weight, Is removed and de | llvered to the next process called inter-
 mediate, which Is practically the same | only this time four laps from the first l process are turned into one, and this is again repeated for the finisher proces: which is the same as the intermediate
 but the flores have been opened and
 more thoroughly cleaned and is now
 ready for the cardins process.
 Befove anything more can be done | 1 is now necessary to remove the leaf par
 ticles, and to separate the individual fl
 pres from their matted position. Botl
 these functions are performed by tn
 machine known as the card, the princi
 pal Of which is that of two surfaces arm
 ed with fine wire teeth revolving no
 quite tangent to each other. The lap
 from the lntsher picker is fed over
 plate onto revolving cylinder bearin
 wire teeth. which combs it over a set 0
 knives, thereby removing coarse dirt an
 passes it on to a large cylinder covere
 with millions of fire wire teeth. Tn 1 latter carries the cotton past a slowl
 revolving endless chain of flats whic
 remove the neps and fine dirt. Tn
 clean separated flores are then picke i off the cylinder by a small revolving cyl
 finder called a doffer, which carries ther i, in a film like sheet to be in turn remoy ed by the doffing comber This com
 working so rapidly that the eye alnos fails to see 1t, lifts the sheet of fibre clear so that It may be passed throug rolls and then to a funnel and condens< into single untwisted rope little LII
 der one inch in dancer. This rope ,, coiled into fibre can twelve inches i diameter and three feet deep.
 We have now for the first time redu
 ed the raw cotton to a continuous stran fairly free from Impurities. Up to tn point, no matter what kind of yarn is be spun, the operations are practical identical. but from here on the process .. vary according to the product desire A hank of yarn is $40 yards and II number of hanks it takes to make l pound is the basis upon which yarn
 cla ssifed. Thus a coarse yarn whiC |, weighs only twenty hanks to poun (Continued on Page seven.)