The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-09-25
Carolina Farm Comment

DALLAS, Texas, Sept. 24.-One
day in the summer of 1928, Law
renee w. Leeper of this city was
visiting a lumber yard in San An
tonic and saw rather interesting
piece of handmade machinery. He
examined the model rather closely
and finally the owner, Ellis Al
waugh, told him the story of the
machine.
Alvaugh was visiting his broth
er, a cotton farmer, and found
him confined to his bed with a
broken leg. In the meantime, his
cotton had terminated and was
growing on up, thickly in the row,
and getting tall and spindly as cot
ton will when it has not been prop
erly chopped or thinned. The
brother was worrying no Lit e
about his cotton but there wa
nothing he could do about it.
Alvaugh, being a mechanic of
some ability. went to loo al
blacksmith shop, got couple of
drums from the brakes of dis
carded automobile. made m e
knives of convenient strips of iron
and hitched the whole thing onto
a rotating wheel to be dragged
along the cotton row by mule pow
er. Thus was born the first me-
chanical cotton chopper.
Mr.. Leper is an imaginative
person and interested in machin-
cry. He saw in the old model
what it might become and bought
it.
"Since that time, l have spent
about s154,0oO trying to perfect
that cotton chopper" he told me
when I visited him in his up-to-
date shop on the outskirts of Dali
las. cat times I have been down
to my last dime but I struggled
along with the idea and now /
know that I finally have a ma
chine that will work. I had some
of the best farm machinery en-
giners and experts to advise me
on the principle of the machine
and it seemed to have everything
that I needed but still it wouldn't
work as thought it should"
The machine is mounted on rub.
Der tires SO that it will adapt it.
self to the lay of the land. But
Mr.. Leeper kept his tires inflated
too tightly. One night, when he
had almost despaired of its ever
doing the job that he wanted it
to do, he left it out in the test
patch. 49,. 49,.
A couple Of mischievous boys
came along and let out most of
the air from the tires and went
on their way pleased with their
prank. But they saved. the cotton
chopper. The next morning, Mr..
Leeper and his Negro helper de-
cided to give the machine one
more trial. They: started it up the
cotton rows and it did perfect
job The low amount of air in
the. tires permitted the knives to
adapt themselves perfectly to the
contour of the ground and the cot
ton, was. thinned and the weeds.
cut off lust as Leeper had always
hoped that it would. Nv
As a. result, cotton growers now
have available machine that will
thin cotton when it should be thin
ned. This means that the grower
will not have to, wait until labor
can get to his farm or. to his cot
ton field but that he can put
machine in there and thin his cot
ton so that it can grow off rap
idly, use the fertilizer, as applied,
and proceed to the making of
profitable crop.
There are some 11,O0O of these
machines now in use and more
would be in operation if Mr.. Lee
per could get all the steel and
other material that he needs. He
has a quota which permits him
to make 1911 this winter but one
third of these are ear-marked for
the; sugar beet growers and only
two-thirds will go to cotton farm
ers. ....e.
Local dealers in farm machin-
cry have requested that they be
eiven territory to have sales rights
for the cotton chopper and some
of them are in North Carolina. I
know of about six machines in the
State and more will come as the
Tarheel farmer also begins to
mechanic his crop.
The machine SKINS along lust