"For what?" the boy asked.
"Guess!"
"I've not the most remote idea," Carl returned.
"Nor I!" echoed Mary.
"For cattle to eat," went on Captain Dillingham, completing his unfinished sentence.
"Even the hulls," he continued, "are, I believe, utilized in some way; and as I previously told you the lint which clings to the seeds is passed through a second sort of gin, gathered into a bundle, and afterward put through a carding engine which combs it out and prepares it so it can be made into wadding for coverlids, quilted linings, and quilted petticoats. All the gins then collect whatever material is left and this, being absolutely too poor for any other purpose, is sold as cotton waste to be used for cleaning machinery and polishing brass and nickel trimmings. Were we individuals half as thrifty as are manufacturers in salvaging the odds and ends that come our way we might save ourselves many a penny. Every year we Americans throw away enough food and wearing apparel to maintain a small army. We are, alas, a very wasteful people and are constantly becoming more so. Our ancestors used to lay aside buttons, string, papers, scraps of cloth and use them again. They made over clothing, fashioned rag rugs, conserved everything they could lay hands on. Their attics were museums where were horded every sort of object against the time when it might be needed. But do we follow their example? No, indeed! In fact, we go to the other extreme and hurry out of the house, either to a junk dealer or a rummage sale, everything we cannot find immediate use for. To a certain extent our mode of living has forced us to this course. Most of us reside in cramped city quarters where there are no spacious attics in which to garner up articles against a rainy day. Modern apartment dwellers boast neither attic nor cellar, to say nothing of a farmer's barn loft. Moreover, we all must scramble so fast to earn our daily bread that we have no time to make over the old; it is cheaper, we reason, to purchase new than to fuss with remodelling. Neither are materials what they were in the old days. Few of the fine old silks and woolens that would wear for a generation are to be had at present. Also we have more money than our forebears and this has much to do with our wholesale wastefulness. With plenty of everything at hand, why save? And the policy the individual is following on a small scale the nation is adopting on a much vaster one. We are using up our forests, our mines, all our resources with no thought of the morrow. We ought to stop and think about this before it is too late but I doubt if we ever will."
Captain Dillingham paused.
"There is such a thing," he added, "as people and nations being too prosperous for their own good. But to return to the cotton gin. The cotton, having been cleared of its seeds, is now known as lint, and this is bundled together until enough of it is collected to be properly baled for the spinning mills."
"What is proper baling?" inquired Carl.
"Why, the rough baling simply gathers the cotton together into a big bundle."