gentleman of
means, who consented to enter into a copartnership with him for the
manufacture of the machines, after the completion of the model should
have enabled Whitney to secure a patent for his invention.

Whitney had hoped to keep his work secret from all others, but this
proved to be impossible. It became rumored about the country that the
young man from New England, who was living at Mrs. Greene's, was engaged
in inventing a machine which would clean cotton with the rapidity of
thought, and the most intense eagerness was manifested to see the
wonderful production, which every one felt would entirely revolutionize
cotton culture in the South. Whitney endeavored to guard his invention
from the public curiosity, but without success. Before he had completed
his model, some scoundrels broke into the place containing it, and
carried it off by night. He succeeded in recovering it, but the
principle upon which it depended was made public, and before the model
was completed and a patent secured, a number of machines based on his
invention had been surreptitiously made, and were in operation.

In spite of this discouraging circumstance, Whitney brought his
invention to perfection, and in the spring of 1793 set up his first
cotton gin, under a shed on Mrs. Greene's plantation, and invited a
number of the neighboring planters to witness its operation.

His machine was very simple, but none the less ingenious on that
account. The cotton was placed in a trough, the bottom of which
consisted of parallel rows of wire, placed like the bars in a grating,
but so close together that the seed could not pass through them.
Underneath this trough revolved an iron roller, armed with teeth formed
of strong wires projecting from the roller, which passed between the
wire bars, and, seizing the cotton, drew it through the bars and passed
it behind the roller, where it was brushed off the wire teeth by means
of a cylindrical brush. The seed, unable to pass through the bars, were
left behind, and, completely stripped of the fiber, ran out in a stream
through a spout at one end of the trough. It was found that the cotton
thus ginned was cleaned thoroughly,[A] and far better than it could be
done by hand, and that a single man, by this process, could clean as
much as three hundred pounds in a day.

[Footnote A: The cotton for which Whitney's machine accomplished so
much, was the short staple, which is the principal product of the South.
Th