and fall out. To
accomplish this we have opening machines of various kinds with beaters,
fans, and rollers and by these methods the cotton is cleaned and
pressed into a flat sheet or lap. Afterward we start in to mix the
varieties in the different bales."

"What for?" questioned Carl.

"Oh, because to get good results you have to have a blend of
varieties," Hal explained.

"But isn't cotton cotton?" inquired Mary.

"Not a bit it isn't," grinned young Harling. "Some cotton is far and
away better than another. Often it has had better care, better weather,
or better soil; or maybe it has grown more evenly and therefore has
less unripe stuff mixed in with it. Or perhaps it was a finer, more
highly cultivated kind in the first place. There are a score of
explanations. Anyhow it is better, and because it is we do not use it
all by itself. Instead we use it to grade up some that is less fine in
quality. After the bales have been classified we take a little of this
and a little of that until we have struck a good average. It goes
without saying that we never mix two extremes, or put the best and the
worst together. That wouldn't do at all. We aim to produce a mean
between these two qualities. All this mixing is not, however, done by
hand, as you might think to hear me talk. No, indeed! We have
bale-breakers or cotton-pullers to do the work. We simply put several
sheets or laps of different quality cotton one on top of another and
then let the spikes of the machines tear it into fragments and mix it
up."

"Oh!" Mary murmured.

"Afterward comes the scutching," went on Hal, "which is really only a
continuation of the same process although the scutching machine makes
the laps of cotton of more even thickness. Next we card the material to
find out where we stand. It is brushed or combed out--whichever you
prefer to call it, and the remaining dirt and short, unripe fibers are
removed. This leaves the real thing, and the machine gathers it up and
twists it into a sort of rope about an inch in diameter called a
sliver."

"What a funny name!" Tim remarked.

"I suppose it is when you stop to think of it," Hal answered. "Well,
anyhow, that's what a sliver is. In some mills they draw the cotton out
into these long strands and double together four or eight slivers
before they are carded. The carding lengthens or stretches them to the
size of one and therefore you get a greater uniformity of size. Beside
that, all the crossed or