Makers of Many Things

by Eva March Tappan

Cotton comes to the factory tightly pressed in bales, and the work of the manufacturer is to make it into these little threads. The bales are big, weighing four or five hundred pounds apiece. They are generally somewhat ragged, for they are done up in coarse, heavy jute. The first glance at an opened cotton bale is a little discouraging, for it is not perfectly clean by any means. Bits of leaves and stems are mixed in with the cotton, and even some of the smaller seeds which have slipped through the gin. There is dust, and plenty of it, that the coarse burlap has not kept out. The first thing to do is to loosen the cotton and make it clean. Great armfuls are thrown into a machine called a "bale-breaker." Rollers with spikes, blunt so as not to injure the fiber,

catch it up and tear the lumps to pieces, and "beaters" toss it into a light, foamy mass. Something else happens to the cotton while it is in the machine, for a current of air is passing through it all the while, and this blows out the dust and bits of rubbish. This current is controlled like the draft of a stove, and it is allowed to be just strong enough to draw the cotton away from the beater when it has become light and open, leaving the harder masses for more beating. When it comes out of the opener, it is in sheets or "laps" three or four feet wide and only half an inch thick. They are white and fleecy and almost cloudlike; and so thin that any sand or broken leaves still remaining will drop out of their own weight.

In this work the manufacturer has been aiming, not only at cleaning the cotton and making it fluffy, but also at mixing it. There are many sorts of cotton, some of longer or finer or more curly or stronger fiber than others, some white and some tinged with color; but the cloth woven of cotton must be uniform; therefore all these kinds must be thoroughly mixed. Even the tossing and turning and beating that it has already received is not enough, and it has to go into a "scutcher," three or four laps at a time, one on top of another, to have still more beating and dusting. When it comes out, it is in a long roll or sheet, so even that any yard of it will weigh very nearly the same as any other yard. The fibers, however, are lying "every which way," and before they can be drawn out into thread, they must be made to lie

parallel. This is brought about in part by carding. When people used to spin and weave in their own houses, they used "hand cards." These were somewhat like brushes for the hair, but instead of bristles they had wires shaped much as if wire hairpins had been bent twice and put through leather in such a way as to form hooks on one side of it. This leather was then nailed to a wooden back and a handle added. The carder took one card in each hand, and with the hooks pointing opposite ways brushed the cotton between them, thus making the fibers lie parallel. This is just what is done in a mill, only by machinery, of course. Instead of the little hand cards, there are great cylinders covered with what is called "card clothing"; that is, canvas bristling with the bent wires, six or seven hundred to the square inch. This takes the place of one card. The place of the other is filled by what are called "flats," or narrow bars of iron covered with card clothing. The cylinders move rapidly, the flats slowly, and the cotton passes between them. It comes out in a dainty white film not so very much heavier than a spider's web, and so beautifully white and shining that it does not seem as if the big, oily, noisy machines could ever have produced it. In a moment, however, it is gone somewhere into the depths of the machine. We have seen the last of the fleecy sheet, for the machinery narrows it and rounds it, and when it comes into sight again, it looks like a soft round cord about an inch thick, and is coiled up in cans nearly a yard high. This cord is called "sliver."

IN A COTTON MILL
The "sliver" coming through the machine, and the "roving" being twisted and wound on bobbins.

The sliver is not uniform; even now its fibers are not entirely parallel, and it is as weak as wet tissue paper. It now pays a visit to the "drawing-frame." Four or six slivers are put together and run through this frame. They go between four pairs of rollers, the first pair moving slowly, the others more rapidly. The slow pair hold the slivers back, while the fast one pull them on. The result is that when the sliver comes out from the rollers, its fibers are much straighter. This process is repeated several times; and at last when the final sliver comes out, although it looks almost the same as when it came from the carding-machine, its fibers are parallel. It is much more uniform, but it is very fragile, and still has to be handled with great care. It is not nearly strong enough to be twisted into thread; and before this can be done, it must pass through three other machines. The first, or "slubber," gives it a very slight twist, just enough to suggest what is coming later, and of course in doing this makes it smaller. The cotton changes its name at every operation, and now it is called "roving." It has taken one long step forward, for now it is not coiled up in cans, but is wound on "bobbins," or great spools. The second machine, the "intermediate speeder," twists it a very little more and winds it on fresh bobbins. It also puts two rovings together, so that if one happens to be thin in one place, there is a chance for it to be strengthened by a thicker place in the other. The third machine, the "fine speeder," simply makes a finer roving.