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Letter XV Oc­to­ber 10th The grand occupation of autumn is cotton picking. It commenced in early fields more than a month ago, is now far advanced, and by the end of this month will be pretty nearly over. I have already spoken of the beauty of the cotton-­ plant when in full blossom; scarcely less beautiful is the appearance of a field of cotton at this season, when the produce is ripe. The fine dark-­green foliage is relieved by the bunches of downy cotton of the purest white, bearing a curious resemblance to a meadow on which a light shower of snow has just fallen. The pods open chiefly during the night. If one is opened by force, the cotton-­ fibres are found to be so closely packed into a hard dirty-­white mass, as scarcely to be recognised, and no manipulation will make them assume a downy appearance . When the capsules, which are three, or occasionally four-celled, burst naturally, the cotton springs out, and swells to four or five times the bulk of the pod, assuming the most beautiful softness, and the most delicate whiteness, and forming three oval bunches of snowy down, each about as large as a hen’s egg. As soon as the sun has exhaled the dew, these are fit for picking; and the night’s opening should be picked if possible on the next day, or it will be lost. In the evening the negroes,—men, women, and children,—bring in the produce of their picking, in large deep baskets, to the gin-­house, when the overseer weighs each one’s lot. As every negro has an allotted task, differing according to theabilityoftheindividual,itisamatterofanxietytoseewhetherthisisaccomplished or not; if it falls short, the whip may pretty certainly be expected, especially if the overseer is a rigorous disciplinarian. The cries of the poor wretches proceeding nightly from the gin-­house, “Oh! Mas’r! Pray, Mas’r!” the low plaintive tones of the men, and the shriller wails of the women and children, are very painful to hear. The cotton has now to undergo a very interesting process. In the picking, the workpeople pull out the whole bunch from the pod, and drop it into the basket . If we examine one of these bunches, we shall see that it consists of several oval seeds densely clothed with fine long white hairs, which are the cotton. In Letters from Alabama 215 the variety chiefly grown here, the seeds are black, but are covered with a very short underclothing of green silky down, among the bases of the white fibres. The latter adhere to the seed with considerable force, but must of course be removed before they are fit for the manufacturer. This separation of the fibre from the seed is accomplished by an effective and ingenious machine, the cotton-­gin. The following description will give you an idea of this valuable machine, and of its operation. The hopper is a long box with one side perpendicular and the other diagonal: the latter is of iron bars about an inch wide, and set with interstices about one-­ eighth of an inch apart, and the angle at the bottom is not closed, but allows a narrow admission into a box below. Behind the slope of the hopper are two cylinders running the whole length, and revolving in the frame-­ work of the machine . One cylinder is of solid wood, and carries some fifty or more circular saws of sheet iron, a foot in diameter, so fixed that the teeth enter a little way into the hopper, between the sloping bars. The cotton is thrown into the hopper from above, and the wheel which communicates motion to the cylinders is set going by means of mules. The teeth of the saws now catch hold of the fibres, and drag them through the interstices, but as these are too narrow to allow the seeds to pass, the fibres are separated, and the naked seeds fall down through the crevice at the bottom. The teeth of the sawscomeforthloadedwiththecottonfibre,whicharetakenoffbytheactionof the sec­ond cylinder. This is a hollow drum, the surface of which is covered with brushes, and being made to revolve with a greater rapidity than the saws, and in the opposite direction, the cotton is brushed off, and falls in downy lightness and purity into a receiver below. With such a machine as this, one man will clear threehundredpoundsofcottoninaday.Theseedsarethrowninheaps,thatfermentation may destroy the germinating principle, and are then...

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