uires three cars to carry the ginnery
bales to the compressor, and two cars to carry the compressed bales to
the port, warehouse, or mill. The saving in freight and handling is
obvious. It needs only a glance at the photograph of the two bales side
by side to see the possible saving in waste and "city crop," or tare. The
obstacles in the way of such an improvement are those which face any
revolutionary change in commercial methods. Established practice,
invested capital, and the natural conservatism of human nature militate
against quick improvement.

CHAPTER VIII

In the Cotton Mill

The manufacture of cotton cloth may be divided into five departments:

1. Preparatory processes: Opening, carding,
combing, and drawing.

2. Spinning.

3. Spooling, warping, sizing, slashing, entering
or drawing-in.

4. Weaving.

5. Converting and finishing, including bleaching,
mercerizing, dying, printing, and finishing.

Before the cotton fiber can be spun into the yarn from which the cloth is
woven, the bales must be broken open, the impurities removed, and the
fibers arranged so that they are parallel and contain no bunches or
tangles. Care in these processes has become more and more necessary and
important as the demand for a higher quality of cloth, possessing greater
strength and evenness, has been developed. Hence, some of the most
elaborate, complex, and admirable machinery in the mill is that devoted
to these preparatory processes. The principle involved is always that of
thoroughly cleaning the material, then opening it so that every fiber
shall be thoroughly separated from its fellows, and then straightening
out the fibers, no matter what types of machines may be used.

Conveying Fiber
By Air Blast

The heavy laps of cotton are first thrown directly from the bale into the
breaker, and the cotton is then usually blown through large pipes from
the room in which the bales are broken to the room in which the openers
are located.

The functions of the opener are two. The first is to clean from the
cotton the dirt and bits of leaf, pod, and foreign substances, which may
have clung to the fiber as it passed through the gin back on the
plantation. The second is to roll the cotton into a more or less regular
"lap," as it is called.

The Energetic
Opener At Work

As the cotton goes into the opener (see diagram on following page), dusty
and dirty, it is seized by str