Cotton belt

“ The movement of the cotton trade, like that of civilisation, has ever been westward. India is recognised as having been from time immemorial its home, and although there cotton has probably been in use for ages as clothing, there is no evidence to show that the substance was even known in Europe till the tenth, or that its manufacture was commenced in England till the end of the sixteenth, century. At that time the weavers used yarn made from “cotton wool,” as it was called, but which yarn was furnished by the Levant and only used for weft, linen forming the warp. ”

“ Our greatest, cheapest, most indispensable fibre is also our latest one. It never formed one of the homespun industries of the colonies; in fact, it was never an article of extended domestic manufacture.
A little cotton was always used in early days for stuffing bedquilts, petticoats, warriors' armor, and similar purposes. It was bought by the pound, [207] East India cotton, in small quantities; the seeds were picked out one by one, by hand; it was carded on wool-cards, and spun into a rather intractable yarn which was used as warp for linsey-woolsey and rag carpets. ”

“ This has for its object the combination of the warp and weft yarns, interlacing one with the other in such manner as to produce a firm texture, fitted for the varying uses to which cotton cloth is adapted—for warmth, for ornament, for trade purposes—for sale. The power looms of the present day, as employed in the cotton industry, vary very little in construction in the most widely separated districts, unless for very different classes of work, then what modifications are required consist of extra mechanism added to our common type—the plain loom. ”

“ Their beauty, unhappily, is their only recommendation, for the herbage is rough and coarse, and altogether unfit for pasture, and the cotton, so called, is cotton only in name. It cannot be manufactured; the hairs are too straight and too brittle. Instead of twining and entangling, like the filaments of true cotton, they lie rigidly side by side, resembling true cotton merely in their whiteness, and could no more be spun into yarn than slate–pencils could be twisted into a cable. ”

“ The result of all this intensive effort is an abundant crop of long-stapled cotton with an extremely strong fiber, bringing in the open market a price second only to that of the American Sea Island variety. Much of the Egyptian cotton is used in the manufacture of hosiery and other knit goods, sateens, sewing thread, etc., but recently it has also been found to be exceedingly well fitted for the manufacture of the fabric used in pneumatic tires, and for the duck or filter cloth used in such industries as the refining of sugar. ”

“ The white fleecy cotton, reposing like a wreath of snow upon the bronze red skin of the hand and wrist, is gradually carried to its farthest extent one way, whilst drawing from it the long slender thread, the other hand conducts, in an opposite direction, the short thin reed tipped with a piece of ivory or horn that forms the reel, which spinning as it hangs, its effect upon the thread depends upon the slowness or quickness with which the cotton is drawn out. ”

“ The cotton which grew in the immediate vicinity of the mills kept them well supplied with raw material. Yet notwithstanding the great push of the cotton mills, they proved totally inadequate, after the war began, to our vast need for clothing of every kind. Every household now became a miniature factory in itself, with its cotton, cards, spinning-wheels, warping-frames, looms, and so on. Wher [40] ever one went, the hum of the spinning-wheel and the clang of the batten of the loom was borne on the ear.
Great trouble was experienced, in the beginning, to find dyes with which to color our stuffs ”

“ Cotton is not only cheaper than linen (which is woven from flax) , but has several advantages over it: it takes dyes much better, and produces brighter colors; the improvements made in the machinery for spinning and weaving cotton, have not only enabled us to match the spinners and weavers of India, which, for a long time supplied nearly the whole of Europe, but at the present time, cotton cloths of English manufacture are exported to India for the purpose of clothing the natives of that country. ”

“ One sister clung to her spinning till 1822. Power-looms were invented to try to use up the jenny's supply of yarn, but these did not crowd out hand-looms. Weavers never had so good wages. It was the Golden Age of Cotton. Some families earned six pounds a week; good clothes, even to the extent of ruffled shirts, good furniture, even to silver spoons, good food, plentiful ale and beer, entered every English cottage with the weaving of cotton and wool. A far more revolutionary and more hated machine than the power-loom was the combing-machine called Big Ben. ”

“ When the pressure is removed the expansive force of the compressed cotton holds the looped ends of the bands in place in the buckle, the looped ends being confined between the bale and the body of the band. The use of the arrow tie has been very extensive. The defendants sell to others to be used the ties which they so prepare, and do not themselves bale cotton with them. Baled cotton is sold in the United States without tare; that is, the iron of the buckle and the hoop is weighed with the cotton and the bagging, and the whole is sold by weight at the price of the cotton per pound. ”

“ Skillful pickers work with both hands, never touching the bolls, but removing the cotton by a single dextrous twist of the fingers. They can thus operate with great rapidity.
As fast as the bags are filled, they are emptied into large baskets, which are placed at a corner of the field or at the ends of the rows. When the day's work is ended the cotton is weighed. The amount brought forward by each person is noted on a slate, from which it is subsequently recorded on the account-book of the plantation. ”

“ As the tree only attains to a height of from twelve to twenty feet, it is difficult to distinguish the tree cotton and the shrub cotton when referred to by travellers.
The cotton plant, in all its varieties, requires a sandy soil. It flourishes on the rocky hills of Hindostan, Africa, and the West Indies, and will grow where the soil is too poor to produce any other valuable crop.
Cotton has always been regarded as indigenous to India, and as the characteristic clothing material of that country, as flax is of Egypt, silk of China, and the wool of sheep and goats of Northern Asia. ”

“ Silk, wool and linen were in use three or four thousand years ago, but cotton was introduced at a later date, and up to the time of our Saviour, was almost unknown as a material for clothing, except in India. Even in the middle ages, we hear no mention of cotton garments in Europe. The Chinese, who have taken the lead in so many arts, did not adopt cotton for use till the eleventh century, though, for four hundred years previous, they had cultivated it as an ornamental shrub in their gardens. Even at the present day, China imports the wool of this plant for manufacture. ”

“ The sand and other impurities fall out of the machine through an open grating at the bottom; the dust and lighter matter pass off through [197] a series of wire openings, and the cleaned cotton is sent down a shoot into the room below.
If the cotton is of fine quality it is beaten, or batted, with hazel or holly twigs. For this purpose, it is spread on a frame, the upper part of which is made of cords and is quite elastic. A woman, with a rod about three or four feet long in each hand, beats the cotton with great violence, and so entirely separates the fibre. ”

“ The cotton warp “all wool” suit of the laboring man has a correct finish, color, and style, better perhaps than of old, for finish and cut are demanded by the poorest and are achieved remarkably by the cheapest clothiers. But in two particulars the cotton substitute fails. It has not the warmth, and it does not keep its appearance. True, if a man puts on enough cotton garments he can get the same warmth. But he cannot get from cotton the same protection against storm and wet, the same safeguard where his labor subjects him to excessive perspiration. He cannot get the same comfort at night. ”

“ With all our boasted Yankee shrewdness and cunning in mechanics we do not make up the finer grades of cotton very extensively. As a rule the coarser kinds of cloth that take much material and less skill are made here, while the finer grades that get more value out of the pound of cotton are made abroad, chiefly in Great Britain. ”

“ In a recent report, the Commissioner of Customs at Fusan sets down the yearly consumption of cleaned cotton at about 300,000,000 lbs. The greater part of the cotton is made up into piece-goods for making garments and padding the native winter clothes. In the Kiung-sang province the pieces of cloth manufactured measure sixty feet, while the width is only fourteen inches, and the weight between three and four pounds. ”

“ When the machine is set in motion the cotton is put into a hopper, which feeds it to the grid, and the revolving saws catch the fibre or lint with their teeth and drag it through the wires. The seeds are too large to follow, so the cotton is torn loose from them and they slide down and out of the way. As the wheel turns round with its teeth full of cotton lint, a revolving brush sweeps it away so that the teeth are cleaned and ready to take up more lint. A simple principle, you may say, but it took a good head to think it out, and to it we owe the famous cotton industry of the South. ”

“ At the present day, it is difficult to discover the exact materials of which some of the goods mentioned were made, but as the smallware weavers were always known as worsted smallware weavers, it may be assumed that worsted entered largely into their products. With checks, and fustians, linen was a more prominent material, but into these cotton certainly entered, as it probably did into the majority of goods to some extent, and silk was also utilised. ”

“ Cotton may be mercerized either in the yarn, warp, skein, or in the piece, the first being more effective. The best and most satisfactory results are achieved when the material treated is made of fine long staple cotton, either Sea Island or Egyptian, the shorter cottons being relatively much less improved by the treatment. The mercerizing does not diminish the strength of the material, and gives to it a greater affinity for dye stuffs. ”

“ Most of our cotton that is not exported is made up into yarns, threads, and the coarser goods, such as shirtings, sheetings, drills, print cloths, bags, and so forth. Yet there are several of our mills, especially in the North, that turn out the finer fabrics with great credit to the country. Large quantities of cotton are, of course, used up in woolen mills, where mixed goods are made, and hosiery mills, felt factories, and hat works consume it largely. Much cotton also goes into mattresses and upholstery. ”

“ The cotton as it comes from the plantation presses occupies too much space. It is interesting to stand near the steamship landings and see the workmen cast off the iron bands and place the bales between the powerful jaws of huge presses which seem, almost without effort, to close down upon the mass of fleecy whiteness and cause it to shrink from four feet to about one foot in thickness. While the cotton is still under pressure, iron bands are once more placed upon it, and the bale is then taken from the press. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the unpractised eye cannot see any difference between the sliver or soft rope of cotton as it reaches, the drawing frame and as it leaves the frame.
The experienced eye of the practical man can, however, detect a wonderful difference.
It has been shown that the immediately preceding operation of carding—amongst other things—reduces the heavy lap into a comparatively thin light sliver; thus advancing with one great stride a long way toward the production of the long fine thread of yarn ready for the market. ”

“ Cotton, the fibre chiefly concerned in these improvements, was obtained in limited quantities from various countries; but, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, not a single pound was exported from the United States. What was grown here was for domestic consumption. Every good housewife had her spinning-wheel, every plantation its hand-loom. The difficulty of supplying cotton fibre in quantity sufficient to meet the demands of the new machinery was due to the imperfect means in use for separating the cotton from its seeds—a tedious operation, for the picking was done by hand. ”

“ If the threads are found to be strong and without flaws two to half a dozen of them are put together in a loose skein and they are twisted in a doubling machine. Afterward the thread is polished, cleaned, and run off on spools or bobbins. That is the road Mother's spools of cotton have to travel before they get to her. How seldom we think of this or are grateful for it!
There are in addition other ways of preparing cottons for embroidery, crocheting, or knitting, not to mention methods used to finish cotton yarn so that it will look like woolen, linen, or silk fiber. ”

“ Cotton, therefore, never can become a suitable material for felting purposes, every fibre being smooth from end to end in either direction, and in contradistinction to fur, which, though equally smooth as the cotton in one way, rebels triumphantly when irritated in the contrary direction, as already described. Mechanically speaking, cotton is smooth, solid, and triangular, whilst wool is rough, tubular, and cylindrical. ”