eed
when an attempt is made to separate them. At first much loss was
occasioned because of the brutal methods employed, and now even with
very much more perfect machinery a good deal of the cotton fibre is
injured in the ginning process.

Image: FIG. 8.--Indian women with roller gin.

At present, most of the cotton produced in various parts of the world is
ginned by machinery, though in India and China foot gins and other
primitive types are still employed.

It should be stated that where a large production of cotton is desired
the foot gin or even what is known as the "Churka gin" (which consists
of a couple of rollers turned by hand) is never employed. Only a few
pounds a day of cotton can be separated from the seeds when this method
is adopted.

The following extract from a lecture by the late Sir Benjamin Dobson
will be of interest here, as showing what is done at an American
ginnery:

"The farmer brings the cotton to the mill in a waggon, with mules or
oxen attached; the cotton is weighed, and then thrown out of the waggon
into a hopper alongside. From this hopper it is taken by an elevator, or
lift, either pneumatic or mechanical, and raised to the third story of
the ginning factory. There it is delivered into another part of the room
until required. When the cotton is to be ginned it is brought by rakes
along the floor to an open sort of hopper or trunk, and from here
conveyed to the gins below by travelling lattices.

"In the factory of which I am speaking there were six gins, all of them
saw-gins. Each gin was provided with a hopper of its own, and the
attendant, when any hopper was full, could either divert the feed to
some other gin, as he required, or stop it altogether. The gins produced
from 300 pounds to 350 pounds per hour. The cotton is dropped from the
condenser, in front of the gin, upon the floor close to the baling
press, into which it is raked by the attendant and baled loosely, but
only temporarily. The seed falls into a travelling lattice, and is
conducted to a straight cylindrical tube, in which works a screw. This
takes it some one hundred yards to the oil mill. There the seed is
dropped into what are known as 'linting' machines, and as much as
possible of the lint or fibre left upon the seed is removed.

"These linting machines--practically another sort of gin--deliver the
cotton or waste in a kind of roll, which is straightway put behind a
carding engine. Coming out of the carding en