Part 105

In this country about nine-tenths of the pencils are provided with rubber erasers. These are either glued into the wood with the lead, or the pencils are provided with small metal ferrules threaded on one end, into which the rubber eraser-plugs are inserted. These ferrules are made from sheet brass, which is cupped by means of power presses, drawn through subsequent operations into tubes of four- or five-inch lengths, cut to the required size, threaded and nickel-plated.

Courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co.

A SOUTHERN COTTON FIELD]

The Story in a Bale of Cotton

Where Does Cotton Come From?

We get cotton from a plant which grows best in the warm climate of our Southern States. Cotton has been known to the people of the world for a long time. Before the birth of Christ people knew about cotton. They thought it was wool which grew on a tree instead of a sheep’s back. No other plant is of such value to man as cotton. We should learn something about a plant that is used by man in so many ways as cotton.

The cotton plant of our Southern States is a small shrub-like annual about four feet high. The flowers of the cotton plant are white at first but change to cream color and then are tinged with red. This change takes place over a period of four days when the petals drop off and leave what is called a “boll” in the calyx of the flower. This boll, which is to contain the cotton, is really the seed container of the cotton plant and keeps on growing larger until it is about as big as a hen’s egg. When it is fully grown or ripe the boll cracks and the seeds and fibrous lint burst forth. The bolls are then gathered and taken to a cotton gin, where the seeds are separated from the lint and the lint prepared for weaving.

The boll is divided into from three to five sections. Each section contains a quantity of lint and seeds. When the boll is fully grown the covering of each of the sections cracks and opens up, revealing the contents. It is just like opening the door of each section and having the contents burst out. When these bolls burst open, there is no more beautiful sight in the world than to look out over a cotton field and see the colored people--the “cotton pickers”--busy at their work picking off the bolls.

When the crop is gathered and ginned, the lint is packed into bales and taken to the cotton mill, where it is made into cloth. One of the most interesting industrial processes in the world is to see the bale of cotton go into a cotton mill and come out a piece of cotton goods.

BALES OF COTTON AT COTTON MILL]

The bales are opened, and the cotton is thrown into the large hoppers at the front of these machines, which open and loosen the fibers, work out lumps and remove the grosser impurities, such as dirt, leaf, seed and trash. A strong air draft carries off the dust and foreign particles, and lifts the cotton through trunks to the floor above.]

In these machines, known as Breaker and Finisher Lappers, more of the trash and impurities is beaten out of the cotton, and the lint is carried forward and wound into rolls of cotton batting, known as laps. Several of these are doubled and drawn into one so as to get the weight of each yard as uniform as possible.]

CARD ROOM.

In these machines, known as Revolving Flat Top Cards, the cotton passes over revolving cylinders clothed with wire teeth, and the fibers are combed out and laid parallel with each other. They are delivered at the front of the machine as a filmy web, which is gathered together and formed into a soft downy ribbon or rope, known as card sliver. This is automatically coiled and delivered into cans.]

To insure uniformity in weight, so that the yarn when spun shall run even, the card slivers are doubled and drawn out, redoubled and again drawn out, somewhat in the manner of a candy maker pulling taffy, only here the process is continuous. Six strands of the card sliver are fed in together at the back of the drawing frames, pulled out and delivered as one; and the process repeated. This produces a sliver more uniform in weight, and in which the fibres are more parallel.]

The sliver from the drawing frames is taken to machines called slubbers, where again the fibers are drawn out, and the strand of cotton, now much finer and known as slubber roving, is given a bit of twist to hold it together, and is wound on large bobbins.]

SPEEDERS.

The large bobbins of roving from the slubbers are taken to other machines known as Speeders, and are unwound through the machine, again drawn out finer and finer, and rewound on smaller bobbins. The strand of cotton known as speeder roving is now ready to be taken to the spinning room for the final draft and twist necessary to turn it into yarn.]

The roving from the speeders is placed on the Spinning Frames, and now undergoes its final draft as it passes through the spinning rolls. The attenuated fibres are then twisted firmly together by the action of the spindles, which turn at a speed of about 10,000 revolutions per minute. The yarn thus formed is wound on bobbins and is ready to be dyed and weaved.]

SPOOLERS.

Two kinds of yarn are delivered at the spinning frames, known as warp and filling, which make respectively the lengthwise and crosswise threads of the cloth. The filling is in its completed form ready for the loom; the warp must first be gotten into shape for dyeing and then arranged in parallel rows or sheets of thread for weaving. The first of these processes is spooling, and consists simply in unwinding the yarn from the small bobbins on which it is spun, and rewinding it on large spools.]

The spools of warp yarn are placed in large wooden racks or creels from which they can conveniently unwind. The separate threads are drawn through little wires in the warpers, and are gathered into a bunch or rope of threads, which is wound in a large cylindrical ball known as a warp. If any thread breaks while passing through the warper, the little wire drops and stops the machine. In this way full count of threads and uniform weight of the goods is insured.]

Here the warps, after being boiled and softened to enable the dye to penetrate, are passed through the indigo vats. Several runs are made to get the beautiful depth of color. This Dye-house is equipped with one hundred indigo vats, and is one of the best-lighted and cleanest-kept dye-houses in the world.]

BEAMING FRAMES.

After being dyed, the warps are washed and then passed through drying machinery, from which they are delivered in coils. These are brought to the beaming frames, where they are again spread out into sheets of parallel threads, and passed through the teeth of a steel comb, which separates the threads and prevents tangling, and in this form they are wound on huge iron spools known as slasher beams.]

From the beaming frames the warps are taken to machines known as Slashers, where they are sized or stiffened to enable them to stand the chafing at the looms incidental to the process of weaving. The slasher beams are placed in an iron frame at the back of the slashers and unwound together through the machine. With them some additional threads of white yarn are unwound at either side to form the selvage of the cloth.]

The sheet of warp threads unwinds from the loom beam, receives the filling threads and is wound into a roll of cloth at the front of the loom. This weave room contains 2000 looms. It is 904 feet long by 180 feet wide (about four acres) and is the largest single weave room in the world. Overhead is the roof, which forms one vast sky-light, being of what is known as saw-tooth construction. The vertical sides of the teeth all face due north and are formed of ribbed glass, which affords the most perfect light to every section of the room.]

INSPECTING TABLES.