tened by his first failure, and gladly accepted
her invitation. While her guest he made her a tambour frame of an
improved pattern, and a number of ingenious toys for her children, which
so delighted the good lady that she enthusiastically declared him
capable of doing any thing.

Not long after Mr. Whitney's arrival at the plantation, Mrs. Greene was
entertaining a number of visitors from the surrounding country, several
planters of considerable wealth being among the number, when one of the
guests turned the conversation upon the subject of cotton-raising, by
declaring that he had met with such poor success that he was ready to
abandon the undertaking. His trouble was not, he said, that cotton would
not grow in his land, for it yielded an abundant return, but that the
labor of clearing it from the seed was so enormous that he could not do
more than pay expenses after selling it.

His case was simply one among a thousand. The far Southern States were
admitted by every one to be admirably adapted to the cultivation of
cotton, but, after it was grown and picked, the expense of cleaning it
destroyed nearly all the profits of the transaction. The cleaning
process was performed by hand, and it was as much as an able-bodied
negro could do to clean one pound per day in this manner. Disheartened
by this difficulty, which no one had yet been able to remove, the
planters of the South were seriously contemplating the entire
abandonment of this portion of their industry, since it only involved
them in debt. Their lands were heavily mortgaged, and general ruin
seemed to threaten them. All felt that the invention of a machine for
cleaning or ginning the cotton would not only remove their difficulties,
but enable them to plant the green cotton-seed, from the use of which
they were then almost entirely debarred, because, although more
productive and of a better quality than the black, and adapted by nature
to a much greater variety of climate, it was much more difficult to
clean, and therefore less profitable to cultivate.

These facts were discussed in the conversation at Mrs. Greene's table,
and it was suggested by one of the company that perhaps the very urgency
of the case would induce some ingenious man to invent a machine which
should solve the problem, and remove all the difficulties in the way.

"Is it a machine you want?" said Mrs. Greene, eagerly. "Then, gentlemen,
you should apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; _he_ ca