Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1893 — A Cotton Picking Machine. [ARTICLE]

A Cotton Picking Machine.

There has been no revolution in the production of cotton since Whitney invented the gin and took the “seeding” of it out of the hands of the old women and children. Now, however, there is a prospect of another great change. Over 600 machines have been invented in the last twenty years for picking the cotton from the boll and all have failed to give satisfaction. But still another is to be tested, and cotton men believe it will be successful. It will pick, it is said, 10,000 pounds a day. An ordinary field hand can pick of the short staple about 150 pounds a day, and of the long staple about 350, so that the new machine will do the work of about forty men. Fifty ceuts a hundred pounds is considered fair wages in the cotton belt. The machine, therefore, will earn SSO a day.—New York Tribune.