d. Lines of pickers pass between the
rows, gathering the down and crowding it into wide-mouthed sacks hanging
from their shoulders or waists. At the ends of the rows are great baskets,
into which the sacks are emptied, and then the cotton is loaded into
wagons which carry it to the gin-house.

If damp, the cotton is dried in the sun. The saw-teeth of the cotton-gin,
as we have seen, separate the cotton fibre from the seeds. Then the cotton
is pressed down by machine presses and packed into bales, each usually
containing five hundred pounds, after which it is sent to the factory.

Various processes are employed to free the cotton from dirt and to loosen
the lumps. When it is cleaned, it is rolled out into thin sheets and taken
to the carding-machine. This, with other machines, prepares the cotton to
be spun into yarn, which is wound off on large reels. The yarn is then
ready to be either twisted into thread or woven into cloth on the great
looms.

The United States produces an average of eleven million bales of cotton
every year, and this is nearly sixty-seven per cent of the production of
the whole world. Cotton is now the second crop in the United States, the
first being Indian corn.

WHEAT

Another great industry is the growing of wheat, which is the foundation of
much of our food. Wheat is a very important grain and is extensively
cultivated.

There are a great many varieties, the two main kinds found in the United
States being the large-kernel winter wheat, grown in the East, and the
hard spring wheat, the best for flour-making, which is grown in the West.

Minnesota is the largest wheat-producing State, and I will ask you to go
in thought with me to that Middle-West region. The farms there are very
level, and also highly productive. The big "bonanza" farms, as they are
called, range in size from two thousand to ten thousand acres. Some of
these are so large that even on level ground one cannot look entirely
across them--so large, indeed, that laborers working at opposite ends do
not see one another for months at a time.

[Illustration: A Wheat-Field.]

During the planting and harvesting seasons temporary laborers come from
all over the country. They are well housed and well fed. The farms are
divided into sections, and each section has its own lodging-house,
dining-hall, barns, and so on. Even then, dinner is carried to the workers
in the field, because they are often a mile or two from the dining-hall.