JOURNAL OF THE

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA,

FOR THE PROMOTION OF THE MECHANIC ARTS.

VOL. CL, NO. 3. 75"rH YEAR. S E P T E M B E R , 19oo

'['IIE ~'ranklin Ins t i tu te is not responsible for the state- ments and opinions advanced by contributors to the Journal.

T H E F R A N K L I N I N S T I T U T E .

Staled Meeling, February zz, I9oo.

"File D E V E L O P M E N T oF THE A M E R I C A N COTTON I N D U S T R Y .

BY FRANK I-IART.

It affords me great pleasure to address you to-night on tile influence of mach ine ry upon the culture, handl ing and manufac ture of cotton in the Uni ted States.

India seems to have been the birthplace of cotton culture and manufacture , as of so much else for which we are in- debted to t ha t ancient civilization. For 3,ooo years, or unt i l the seventeenth century, it was the cotton-weaving center of the world.

Whi le the indus t ry was nowhere else so h ighly developed at so early a period, cotton was in prehistoric t imes grown and spun in many parts of the world. The Egypt ians were, probably, famil iar with it. At the t ime of Columbus' dis- VOL. CL. No. 897. II

~62 /[c~rt : [J. L'~. i.,

eovery the fiber was gn)wn and made into cloth by the in- habi tants of the Wes t Indies, ~.Iexico, Pdru and Brazil. Cot- ton cloth has been found in the ancient tombs of the Peru- vians. Mexico, under the Monteznmas, knew nei ther wool nor silk, and, "flthon~gh it t)osscssed the plant, did not use llax. I t is es t imated that prior to the Conquest ~ 16,ooo,ooo pounds of cotton were grown annual ly by the Aztecs, more than four t imes as mt~ch as is produced by their successors in Mexico to-day. Singular ly enough, the only region in the Western I[emisphere between the parallels 4 °o north and 4o ° south that did not grow cotton prior to the discovery of America is that occupied by the Cotton States, which now produce three-quarters of the world's entire yield.

Herein is seen the influence of machinery, tha t worker of miracles, which has t ransformed the face of the earth, anni- hilated space and time, and made the forces of na ture to do the work of man.

[t may be true tha t wi thout machinery cot ton would ulti- mately have been an important article of our Southern agri- culture, but it cannot be doubted that, except for this factor, the history of the staple in this country weald have been far other than it is, and tha t instead of en joying a v i r tua l mon- opoly of the cult ivation of cotton, the South would have borne but an insignificant part in its product ion.

"I'he first of the colonies to plant cotton was Virginia, in ~62I. It was not until ~747 that any cotton was exported, and then only a few bags valued at less than $2o. In I 7 7 o

three bales were shipped to Liverpool from New York; ten bales from Charleston; four from Virginia and Maryland, and three barrels from North Carolina. In I786 9oo pounds of cotton were exported to Liverpool. The next year t h e exports to Eng land aggregated ~6,35o pounds. In ~79 o on ly 2,ooo,ooo pounds of cotton were grown in the South. T h e following year I89,5oo pounds of Amer ican cot ton were shipped to Liverpool, the price paid on this side a v e r a g i n g 26 cents per pound.

The foregoing figures represent the growth of cotton cul- ture in the Colonies in 17o years. He would have been se t down as a vis ionary who should have foretold wha t t h e n e x t

.~ept., I9oo.} ..1 ~ncr/,:alz (.oz'Zopz Imtztstry. 163

century, under the impulse of a mighty force harnessed by the genius of man, was to br ing forth.

The inventions of tha t galaxy of mechan ic ians - -Har - greaves, Arkwright , Crompton, Car twright and Wat t - -ush - ered in one of the might ies t of modern industries, and created a demand for more cotton than the world produced. If the South could not be freed from dependence on the de- vices then in use, it was not to be expected that the increase would he suppl ied by the Uni ted States. To have grown the cot ton wouht have been easy; the difficulty lay in i ts preparat ion for market . The l int had to be separated from the seed by hand, a slow and expensive process, which even at the high prices tha t then prevailed left little return for the cot ton farmer, and res t r ic ted the growth of the staple in the South pract ical ly to the requi rements for domest ic use.

\Vhi tney 's invention of the cotton gin in 1793 made pos- sible the product ion of cot ton in America as a eommereial crop. ' rhe effect on the South was magical. In I796, a year after W h i t n e y had improved his machine, the yield had risen to IO,OOO,OOO pounds. In ~8oo-oI the South produced 48,ooo,ooo pounds of cotton, or 96,ooo bales of 5oo pounds net. Product ion grew by leaps and bounds. In I8o6-o 7 it was i6o,ooo ba les ; in I816-I7, 26o,ooo bales; in I84o-4t, L288,ooo bales. By t859-6o the crop had grown to 4,482,0oo bales of 5oo pounds net.

Cotton was indeed king ! I ts production had become the most impor tan t agr icul tura l pursui t in Amer ica ; its pro- ducers the weal th ies t farmers the world had ever seen. The Civil W a r para lyzed the industry, bu t af ter the return of peace the yield grew steadily, until in I897-98 it reached i ~,216,ooo, and the year fol lowing I x,256,ooo gross bales.

As the purpose of this paper is not to set forth in detail the his tory of the culture, handl ing and manufacture of cot- ton in this country , bu t merely to point out what has been accomplished by the aid of machinery and to indicate wha t yet remains to be done, in discussing the third phase of the subject , which, for convenience, will be t reated before the second, I shall do no more than refer to the growth of cot- ton spindles in America . The pioneer of an indus t ry which

i64 [[arl: I J. F. I.,

has contr ibuted enormously to the weal th of New England and the Middle States, and is just now quickening the South to s tupendous activity, was a cotton mill erected at Beverly, Mass., in ~788. It was soon followed by others in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania , and at Statesburg, in South Carolina.

Al though possessing the strategic advantages of cheap labor, abundan t water power and proximity to the cotton fields, the South neglected until after the Civit "War toavai l herself of them. For three-quarters of a century she was content to supply the raw material whose fabricat ion en- riched the North, England and Continental Europe. The past two decades, however, have witnessed an industr ial revolution in the South, This favored region has become an important , and promises at no dis tant period to be the dominant , factor in the cotton manufac tu r ing si tuation. Last year, it is estimated, mills were buil t or begun in the Soutln, requir ing in the aggregate 1,824,ooo spindles and 23,3oo looms, and involving an inves tment of $33,714,ooo. Mr. D. A. Tompkins, the cotton mill expert of Charlotte, N. C., est imates tha t 2,ooo,ooo spindles will be installe'd in Southern mills this year.

To quote this au thor i ty : "The re are now 5,ooo,ooo spindtes in the South, I3,ooo,ooo in New England and 2,ooo,ooo in other States. England has 46,ooo,ooo spindles. If the present rate of increase, 2,ooo,ooo a year, cont inues , in ten years the Uni ted States will have 45,ooo,ooo spindles, of which the South will have 25,ooo,ooo--more than New England and the Middle States combined."

Not the least of the South 's debt to machinery is owed to the invention of processes for ,the u t i l iza t ion of the cotton plant 's by-products. Al though the value of cotton-seed oil was known in the last century, it was not unt i l about ~85o that it was produced as an article of commerce. In I867 there were only four oil mills in the South. Now there are several hundred. In an average season they c r u s h 1,5oo,ooo or 2,oo0,ooo tons of seed, which yield cotton-seed oil and other products having a value of some $3o,ooo,0oo. Probably no t more than 4o per cent. of the available cotton seed reaches

Sept., I9oo. ] ~tlHcrh:au C})ttou ]mtusgry. I6 5

the oil mills. W h e n alI of the crop, except the require- ments for reseeding, finds its way there to be converted into oil, catt le feed and fertilizer, the South will receive a revenue of some $6o,ooo,o0o or $7o,ooo,ooo annual ly from a by-pro- duct, of which, in ante-bel lum days, almost no use was made.

Unfor tunate ly , the handl ing of cotton has not kept pace with its production. Save the roller gins employed for del int ing Sea Island cotton, the gins used now, while vastly improved mechanical ly and of great ly increased out turn, are in principle the same as tha t invented by Whi tney. They are made up of gangs of seventy or e ighty circular saws, working between ribs, the teeth of which tear the lint from the seed and great ly injure the fiber. In old-style gin- houses the lint, as it leaves the condenser, is thrown into the gin press, by which some 5oo pounds of cotton are pressed into a rec tangular bale weighing about 12 pounds per cubic foot. This bale is partly covered with coarse jute and rudely bound with six or more iron bands, which, with the bagging, weigh some 22 pounds.

V'rom the momen t it leaves the gin-house the square bale's troubles begin. I t is taken first to the local cotton market, where it is freely sampled by country buyers. Thence it is delivered to the railroad to be conveyed to the nearest compress. Inasmuch as a quar ter of the Southern cotton crop annua l ly moves to the local f re ight stations in thir ty days and three-quarters in four months, the railroads are u t te r ly unable to handle the traffic. Blockades result. The cotton lies uncovered on the local depot p la t forms or on the bare ground, often as long as six o r e igh t weeks, ex- posed to the elements. Arr ived at the compress i t awaits its turn to be compressed. The result of this t rea tment is " c o u n t r y damage," claims for Which at the single port of Liverpool aggrega te $5oo,ooo a year.

In the compress the gin-bale is subjected, to a pressure Of from 2,4o0 to 3,ooo tons and reduced to about half its former thickness, or to a densi ty of some 22 pounds per cubic foot. The ties are shortened and the side pieces, if any were put on at the gin, are taken off. The compress. ing, which costs 5o cents a bale, occupies but a few seconds,

166 I t a r t . " IJ. F.I.,

and resembles a blow from a ponderous steam hammer. Along with the cotton much air is compressed in the bale, which by support ing combustion in the interior, where the fire cannot be reached, makes of the square bale of cotton a veritable fire-trap. "Phc jute bagging, with which a pre- tense is made of covering the bale, affords almost no pro- tection to the lint. l,oosely woven, it readily permits the absorption of moisture. More inltammable even than the cotton itself, it invites rather than prevents fire.

It was inevitable that this crude system would be super- seded by a better. Indeed, the wonder is that the square bale abuses should have been tolerated so long. It was early recognized that the root of the evil was the bale itself, and that any improvement, to be of value, must begin with a better bale. It was seen, too, that the cotton bale of the future would be cylindrical in shape, q'he first a t tempts at forming a round bale were made more than 50 years ago. A machine for rolling up cotton in the shape of a cylinder was patented by North in i848 , but nothing came of it. Many subsequent at tempts were made with equal want of success. The chief obstacle lay in devising a machine that would pu tup cotton under pressure in a bale perfectly round; otherwise it was impossible to secure sufficient density. The greater the pressure applied to a bale of uneven formation, the more out of round it became, and it soon stopped revolving al together or resulted in a comparat ively soft bale. The next difficulty was in so regula t ing the pressure as to prevent hard centers.

For many years mechanical minds labored to solve these problems. The American Cotton Company's roundlap press is the sum of their combined efforts. I t is covered by more than fifty patents and represents the expenditure of vast sums of money. The press has two horizontal rolls, and a hydraulic cylinder connected with a large air chamber regulates the pressure automatically.

To insure uninterrupted operation the press is now built in duplicate. At tached directly to the gins, it takes up and bales, wi thout stopping for the removal of finished bales, the entire output of from three to e ight 7 ° - or 8o-saw gins.

Sept., 19oo. ] A~Jce~-icaJz ColtoJz fnduslrj" x67

On its way from the gins to the press the l int passes through a l int flue equipped with di r t pockets by means of which all sand and dirt are removed. From the lint flue it passes over a condenser hav ing a velocity of about 5o revolutions per minute . The cotton, barely touching the condenser drum, is thrown off, the air and dus t pass through the wire cloth above, while the cotton, a fluffy mass some 5 feet thick, passes on over and falls into the bat-former--com- prised of two converging aprons, whose adjacent surfaces t ravel in the same d i rec t ion- -which delivers it to the com- pression rolls in a uni form bat xo or I2 inches thick and we igh ing 2a pounds to the yard. This bat moves at the same speed as the press. ~i~hus a continuous lap of cotton is made tha t unrolls as easily as it is rolled up. As it passes benea th the compression roller the air is excluded and the compressed cotton is wound around a core under a pressure, which, l ight at first, is gradual ly increased au tomat i ca l ly unt i l the bale at tains its full size. In this way, by the s teady exert ion of an even pressure of less than 15 tons gradual ly applied to all the cotton in detail, a bale is produced hav ing a densi ty of 35 pounds per cubic foot, as aga ins t the dens i ty of 22 pounds at tained by the square bale af ter a second compression in which a force 2oo times g rea te r is employed in one ponderous blow directed against all the cotton in mass.

By reason of this moderate pressure, gradually applied as the bat moves forward under the roll, one end of every s t rand of cot ton is in effect fixed while the pressure of the expelled air s t ra igh tens out the fiber and it is caught and held in, tha t position. This action and the pressure are not so grea t as in any way to affect the natural spiral i ty of the cot ton fiber so impor tan t to the spinner or to injure the fiber in the smallest degree. The air having been pressed out, the bale, besides being rendered practically indestruc- tible by fire, is self-containing, has no tendency to expand and does not require iron ties. W h e n the bale is of proper size i t is completely covered with a light, closely woven, in- expensive burlap, which keeps the cotton clean and dry. Weighed , marked and tagged, the bale is ready wi thout

168 M a r t : [J. F. 1.,

fur ther compression for th rough sh ipment to the mills in America or to ports abroad. Former ly bales were made 48 inches in length and e 5 inches in diameter . Thirty-five inches having been found a length more sui table for hand- ling at the mills, the presses are built to turn out bales of that length, 22 inches in diameter and we igh ing 270 pounds each.

Whi le the bale is being made, an uncompressed sample Io x 24 inches and about 4 inches thick is drawn and divided into two pieces, each about Io x i2 x 4 inches. These are tagged to correspond to the tag n u m b e r of the bale, one is sent to the American Cotton Company and the other is retained by the ginner or delivered to the owller of the cotton. On samples taken in this way the American Cotton Company has bought hundreds of thousands of roundlap bales, which it has in turn wi thou t fur ther sam- piing sold, with fewer disagreements and rechtmations than would have accompanied a square bale business of equal magnitude. ~vVhile sampling is ent irely unnecessary, if for any reason it is desirable, a roundlap bale can be resampled as readily as a square bale.

In fur therance of its purpose to insure to the South that the economies of its bal ing process shall be reaped in full, the American Cotton Company has organized a sys tem for the through handl ing of cotton from gin-house to mill. In order to insure a ready market for all cotton baled on its presses, the Company became a cotton buyer to the extent of agreeing to buy any and all cotton properly put up in roundlap bales, and to pay therefor 45 cents per hundred pounds more than the market price of the same cotton in old-style bales. This premium is the first f rui t of the roundlap bale economies, and it is paid to the planter.

It is impossible within the l imits of this paper to do more than allude to the savings effeeted by the roundlap bale. The el iminat ion of the necessity of a second compression, a l though the keystone of the roundlap system, is only one of many economies. As against bagg ing and ties for a 5oo- pound square bale, which, as has been said, w e i g h 22 pounds, and cost 75 cents, the covering for an equivalent of

Sept.. 19oo I zt JJzEricalz ~))ttoJl [ndus&'y. I69

cotton in roundlap bales weighs 5 pounds and costs 25 cents. Besides this initial saving of 50 cents per bale in the cost of covering, there is a further saving of freight on the I7 pounds excess weight of bagging and ties. Colonel A. B. Shepperson, the eminent cotton statistician, in consider- ing this phase of the cotton handling question, in the latest edition of his " Cotton Pacts," points out that, owing to this excess weight of bagging and ties, in the marketing of the 1•97--98 and the I898-99 cotton crops freight was paid on the equivalent of over 8oo,ooo old-style bales more than would have been required to market those crops in roundlap bales. Estimating that the cost of transporting cotton to the mills averages $6.25 a bale, which is believed to be well within the actual figures, the freight charge against these two crops, arising from the excess weight of bagging and ties, was $5,ooo,ooo more than it would have been' had the Southern staple been marketed in roundtap bales. This does not take into consideration the freight originally paid in sending the surplus weight of bagging and ties to the cotton plantations, which was not less than $2,ooo,ooo for the two crop years in question. Thus in two seasons the South paid $7,ooo,ooo in needless freights on the surplus weight of the materials used to cover its cotton--materials, moreover, which not only do not protect the staple from damage, but fail to preserve intact the package they are employed to make.

This loss is small beside that involved in the transpor- tation of the old-style bales themselves. Uncompressed square bales, loading to one-fourth, and compressed square bales, to one-half the weight capacity of cars, pay rates based on full carrying capacity. Roundlap bales, on the

o t h e r hand; load to the full weight capacity of freight ears. Shipments of the American Cotton Company's bales weigh- ing 68,628 pounds and 72,226 pounds, respectively, have been made in a single car. Roundlap bales being shipped from gin.plants through to the mills in this country or to cotton ports abroad, the employment of roiling stock in the profitless traffic of concentrating cotton for compression is obviated. Competent railroad authorities estimate that

170 ] ] a r t : [J. F'. I .

roundlap cotton can be handled with one-fifth the number of cars required to market the equivalent of square cotton. ( )n shipboard roundlap bales stow with a saving of one-third the space occupied by square bales, with grea te r ease of handl ing and wi thout needing to be screwed in. If the average freight charge for carrying Southern cotton to tile spindles of the world is 86.25 per 5oo-pound bale, the marke t ing of a ~o,ooo,ooo-balc crop involves an expendi ture of $62,5oo,ooo f~}r freight. ~l?hat roundlap bales can be carried by rail- ways and steamships at a saving of one-third the cost of t ransport ing square bales is an es t imate tha t leans to the side of conservatism. If this be true, it follows tha t when the adoption of the roundlap baling system becomes general throughout the South $2o,ooo,ooo will be saved annual ly in the expense of transportat ion.

It is estimated tha t raw cotton pays every year some $4,ooo,ooo for marine and fire insurance, Of this, $boo,ooo goes to pay the "coun t ry damage " claims on square cotton received at the single port of Liverpool. At least half as much more is required to pay " country d a m a g e " claims arising elsewhere. Here is three-quarters of a million dol- lars tha t can be saved annual ly by the roundlap bale, against which there has never been a claim for " c o u n t r y damage," to say nothing of the large saving in marine and fire insur- ance premiums due to the roundlap hale's super ior i ty as an insurance risk.

The petty leaks, small as they seem in themselves, grow in the market ing of a season's crop into s tupendous losses. From the gin to the mill square bales change ownership from three to five times, and are as often reweighed, re-exam- ined and reinsured. Every t ime a bale is sold, and fre- quent ly when it isn't, it is sampled. Between sampl ing and theft, the square bale loses first and last some 5 pounds of lint, which, baled, go to make up the " c i t y crop." This crop is wholly independent of climatic condi t ions and never fails. It is es t imated by a well-known s ta t is t ic ian to yield annual ly mo,ooo 5oo-pound bales, worth to the farmer, at 7 cents a pound, $3,boo,ooo. I-ton. I. F. Culver, Commis- sioner of Agricul ture of Alabama, in a paper read before the

Sept., ~ 9 o o . ] Amcricalz 6"ottolz Industry. 17 I

Cotton States Associa t ion of Commissioners of Agricul ture , in Atlanta , Ga., in October last, es t imated the expense of reweighing, re-examining and reclassing square cotton, ex. c lusive of the lint lost, at 30 cents a bale, or $3,oo0,0o0 an- nually. Mending square bales costs not less than Io cents a bale, or $I,OOO,OOO for an average crop.

Square bales are sold abroad less 6 per cent. tare. The .covering for the Amer ican Cotton Company's Bales weighs 5 pounds for each 495 pounds of lint. When cotton thus packed reaches the ports abroad, clean and uninjured, i t w e i g h s e x a e t l y w h a t it weighed at the g i n , t h e covering weighs no more and no less than when it was put on, and the bales are sold less I per cent. tare, a saving of 5 per cent.

The saving at the mills begins with the unloading of the cars. The most approved method of handl ing roundlap bales is to place three or four bales directly on the apron of the breaker lapper, from which they unroll au tomat ica l ly direct ly into the machine. There are, besides the mater ia l sav ing of expense, fur ther savings of was tage ancl loss of weight. A compara t ive test of roundlap and square cotton was made in the Massachuse t t s Cotton Mills, of Lowell, Mass., last month, to determine the relative shrinkage in weight by drying out. The cotton was opened, loosened by hand, placed in new bags and al!owed to stand t84 hours before be ing reweighed. The square cotton showed a loss of 2"283 per cent., the roundlap cotton a loss of I"27I per cent. The saving in favor of roundlap cotton was I'OI 2 per cent., or 4"837 pounds per bale of 478 pounds net. I t is im- possible to express in terms of money these economies at the mill, bu t a mill owner, whom an experience of several years in the use of roundlap cotton has enabled to g ive the s u b j e c t careful considerat ion, es t imates them at not less than one-eighth of a cent per pound.

According to the foregoing est imates, all of which are bel ieved to be conservat ive, the savings which would accrue f rom the marke t ing of a IO,Ooo,ooo-bale crop in roundlap bales m a y be summar ized as follows:

17 2 / ) a r s o n s : [J. F. I.,

On b a g g i n g a n d t ies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5,ooo,0oo Compres s ing 8o per cent . of squa re bales . . . . . . . . 4,coo,ooo

F r e i g h t . . . . . . . . . . . eo,ooo,ooo

S c r e w i n g in and labor saved at sh ip ' s side . . . . . . . r,25o,ooo

Unneces sa ry s a m p l i n g and the f t . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,50o,0oo

I n s u r a n c e ( i n c l u d i n g c oun t r y d a m a g e ) . . . . . . . . . J,5oo,o~c)

R e w e i g h i n g s and y a r d a g e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,ooo,c~c)o M e n d i n g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r ,o~),ooo

At t he m i l l .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,5oo,oco

Tota l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844,75%ooo

This enormous sum is the annual tax imposed on the cot- ton States by an unscientific system. I t means tha t ,$4.50 of the proceeds of every square bale of cot ton is wasted. The roundlap bale saves all this waste. I ts economies accrue not alone to the profit of the producers of cot ton, the common carriers, the makers and opera tors of round lap baling presses and tile users of roundlap bales, bu t t hey may be shared also by responsible cot ton buyers , m e r c h a n t s and bankers and by every other leg i t imate commerc ia l in te res t engaged in the marke t ing of this grea t staple.

Mechanical and Engineering Section. 57aled WZeelin,~, hekt Febrltary 8, zgoo.

FIRE IIAZARDS.

Bv H. DP; B. PARSONS, M.E.

" A n ounce of prevent ion is worth a pound of cure " is an old adage conta in ing much that is wor th pract ic ing. T h e ratio in the phrase is one in sixteen, b u t are there many who put, out of sixteen chances, one on the side of sa fe ty ? Wi th fire risks, it would seem t ruer to place the rat io at one in a hundred and al ter the phrase to s u i t - - a cen t of preven- tion is worth a dollar of cure. Even tha t p ropor t ion of the cost of a bui ld ing is rarely spent to reduce the fire hazard. Near ly every one figures on a loss by fire as one of m o n e y