A cotton picker is either a machine that harvests cotton , or a person who picks ripe cotton fibre from the plants. The machine is also referred to as a cotton harvester .
54-554: Clover Leaf Mills (or formerly known as Seaconnet Mills ) is a historic cotton textile mill complex located at 1 & 21 Father DeValles Boulevard in Fall River, Massachusetts . Begun in 1884, the mill is a good example of 1880s industrial architecture. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Clover Leaf Mills complex is located in an isolated but highly visible setting southeast of
108-511: A compact "brick" of seed-cotton, weighing approximately 21,000 pounds or 9.5 tonnes (16 un-ginned bales), which can be stored in the field or in the "gin yard" until it is ginned. Each ginned bale weighs roughly 480 pounds (220 kg). An industry-exclusive on-board round module builder was offered by John Deere in 2007. In c.2008 the Case IH Module Express 625 was designed in collaboration with ginners and growers to provide
162-404: A cone-shaped bundle of fibres known as a "cop", as the carriage returns. Mule spinning produces a finer thread than ring spinning . The mule was an intermittent process, as the frame advanced and returned a distance of five feet. It was the descendant of the 1779 Crompton device. It produces a softer, less twisted thread that was favoured for fine fabrics and wefts. The ring was a descendant of
216-476: A continuous soft fleecy sheet, known as a lap. Scutching refers to the process of cleaning cotton of its seeds and other impurities. The first scutching machine was invented in 1797, but did not come into further mainstream use until after 1808 or 1809, when it was introduced and used in Manchester, England. By 1816, it had become generally adopted. The scutching machine worked by passing the cotton through
270-424: A loose strand (sliver or tow). The cotton comes off of the picking machine in laps, and is then taken to carding machines. The carders line up the fibres neatly to make them easier to spin. The carding machine consists mainly of one big roller with smaller ones surrounding it. All of the rollers are covered in small teeth, and as the cotton is moved forwards, the teeth get finer (i.e. closer together). The cotton leaves
324-424: A machine with large spikes, called an opener . To fluff up the cotton and remove the vegetable matter, the cotton is sent through a picker or a similar machine. In a picker , the cotton is beaten with a beater bar to loosen it up. It is then fed through various rollers, which serve to remove the vegetable matter. The cotton, aided by fans, then collects on a screen and gets fed through more rollers where it emerges as
378-445: A pair of rollers, and then striking it with iron or steel bars called beater bars or beaters. The beaters, which turn very quickly, strike the cotton hard and knock the seeds out. This process is done over a series of parallel bars so as to allow the seeds to fall through. At the same time, air is blown across the bars, which carries the cotton into a cotton chamber. In the carding process, the fibres are separated and then assembled into
432-415: A plain loom. A Northrop Loom was fully automatic and was mass-produced between 1909 and the mid-1960s. Modern looms run faster and do not use a shuttle: there are air jet looms, water jet looms, and rapier looms . Ends and Picks: Picks refer to the weft, ends refer to the warp. The coarseness of the cloth can be expressed as the number of picks and ends per quarter-inch square, or per inch square. Ends
486-413: A very thick rope of cotton fibres, the slivers are separated into rovings. Generally speaking, for machine processing, a roving is about the width of a pencil. These rovings (or slubbings) are then what are used in the spinning process. Most spinning today is done using break, or open-end spinning . This is a technique where the fibres are blown by air into a rotating drum, where they attach themselves to
540-483: Is a higher rate of cotton being produced compared to the actual workers needed to produce the material. In 2013 a cotton farmer in Mississippi, Bower Flowers, produced around 13,000 bales of cotton in that year alone. This amount of cotton could be used to produce up to 9.4 million T-shirts. The seed cotton goes into a cotton gin . The cotton gin separates seeds and removes the "trash" (dirt, stems and leaves) from
594-488: Is a weft knit. Finishing is a broad range of physical and chemical processes/treatments that complete one stage of textile manufacturing, sometimes in preparation for the next step. Finishing adds value to the product and makes it more attractive, useful and functional for the end-user. Fresh off the loom, cotton fabric not only contains impurities, including warp size, but it also requires further treatment to develop its full potential and to add to its value. Depending on
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#1732797417924648-433: Is always written first. For example: Heavy domestics are made from coarse yarns, such as 10's to 14's warp and weft, and about 48 ends and 52 picks. Associated job titles include piecer, scavenger , weaver, tackler , draw boy. When a hand loom was located in the home, children helped with the weaving process from an early age. Piecing needs dexterity, and a child can be as productive as an adult. When weaving moved from
702-470: Is boiled in an alkali solution, which forms a soap with free fatty acids. A kier is usually enclosed, so the solution of sodium hydroxide can be boiled under pressure, excluding oxygen , which would degrade the cellulose in the fibre. If the appropriate reagents are used, scouring will also remove size from the fabric, although desizing often precedes scouring and is considered to be a separate process. Preparation and scouring are prerequisites to most of
756-404: Is called Indian. The cotton seed is pressed into cooking oil. The husks and meal are processed into animal feed, and the stems into paper. Ginning, bale-making and transportation are done in the country of origin. Cotton is shipped to mills in large 500-pound bales. When the cotton comes out of a bale, it is all packed together and still contains vegetable matter. The bale is broken open using
810-404: Is done by pulling yarn from two or more bobbins and twisting it together, in a direction opposite to the one it was spun in. Depending on the weight desired, the cotton may or may not be plied, and the number of strands twisted together varies. Gassing is the process of passing yarn very rapidly through a series of Bunsen gas flames in a gassing frame, to burn off the projecting fibres and to make
864-480: Is done in two different ways; warp and weft. Weft knitting (as seen in the pictures) is similar in method to hand knitting with stitches all connected to each other horizontally. Various weft machines can be configured to produce textiles from a single spool of yarn or multiple spools, depending on the size of the machine cylinder (in which the needles are bedded). In a warp knit , there are many pieces of yarn and there are vertical chains, zigzagged together by crossing
918-461: Is mercerised under tension, and all alkali must be washed out before the tension is released, or shrinkage will take place. Many other chemical treatments may be applied to cotton fabrics to produce low flammability, crease-resistance and other qualities, but the four most important non-chemical finishing treatments are: Singeing is designed to burn off the surface fibres from the fabric to produce smoothness. The fabric passes over brushes to raise
972-412: Is oriented north–south. The weave shed is two stories in height, and is oriented east–west. The cluster of outbuildings include a boiler house, picker house, and a brick chimney. Mill No. 1 (the spinning mill) was built in 1884, while Mill No. 2 (the weave shed) was built in the 1890s. Henry C. Lincoln was the first president of the company, which had a peak capacity of 72,000 spindles. In October 1889,
1026-472: Is the application of colour in the form of a paste or ink to the surface of a fabric in a predetermined pattern. It can be described as a form of localised dyeing. Printing designs onto previously dyed fabric is also possible. Production of cotton requires arable land . In addition, cotton is farmed intensively and uses large amounts of fertilizer and 25% of the world's insecticides. Native Indian varieties of cotton were rainwater fed, but modern hybrids used for
1080-419: Is then compressed into bales which are about 1.5 m tall and weigh almost 220 kg. Only 33% of the crop is usable lint. Commercial cotton is graded and priced according to its quality; this broadly relates to the average length of the staple and the variety of the plant. Longer-staple cotton (2½ in to 1¼ in) is called Egyptian, medium staple (1¼ in to ¾ in) is called American upland, and short staple (less than ¾ in)
1134-455: Is then converted into useful goods such as clothing , household items, upholstery and various industrial products. Different types of fibres are used to produce yarn. Cotton remains the most widely used and common natural fiber making up 90% of all-natural fibers used in the textile industry. People often use cotton clothing and accessories because of comfort, not limited to different weathers. There are many variable processes available at
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#17327974179241188-711: The Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company manufactured cotton pickers using an improved Rust design. In the following years mechanical pickers were gradually improved and were increasingly adopted by farmers. The introduction of the cotton picker has been cited as a factor in the Second Great Migration . To make mechanical cotton pickers more practical, improvements in the cotton plant and in cotton culture were also necessary. In earlier times, cotton fields had to be picked by hand three and four times each harvest season because
1242-852: The Great Depression it was difficult to obtain financing to develop their inventions. In 1935 the Rust brothers founded the Rust Cotton Picker Company in Memphis, Tennessee , and on 31 August 1936 demonstrated the Rust picker at the Delta Experiment Station in Stoneville, Mississippi . Although the first Rust picker was not without serious deficiencies, it did pick cotton and the demonstration attracted considerable national press coverage. Nevertheless,
1296-453: The spinning and fabric-forming stages coupled with the complexities of the finishing and colouration processes to the production of a wide range of products. Textile manufacturing in the modern era is an evolved form of the art and craft industries. Until the 18th and 19th centuries, the textile industry was a household work. It became mechanised in the 18th and 19th centuries, and has continued to develop through science and technology since
1350-422: The weft . The warp, which must be strong, needs to be presented to loom on a warp beam. The weft passes across the loom in a shuttle that carries the yarn on a pirn . These pirns are automatically changed by the loom. Thus, the yarn needs to be wrapped onto a beam, and onto pirns before weaving can commence. After being spun and plied, the cotton thread is taken to a warping room where the winding machine takes
1404-476: The Arkwright Water frame of 1769. It was a continuous process, the yarn was coarser, had a greater twist and was stronger, thus suitable for use as warp thread. Ring spinning is slow due to the distance the thread must pass around the ring. Sewing thread was made of several threads twisted together, or doubled. This is the process where each of the bobbins is rewound to give a tighter bobbin. Plying
1458-551: The Howard-Arthur Company. In 2001, the name of Seaconnett Mills was changed to Clover Leaf Mills for its centered position within the location of the highway interchange. The mill site has been recently restored into an office park. Textile mill Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry . It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn , then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which
1512-507: The Rusts' company did not have the capability of manufacturing cotton pickers in significant quantities. With the success of the Rust picker, other companies redoubled their efforts to produce practical pickers not based on the Rust patents. Then, widespread adoption was delayed by the manufacturing demands of World War II . The International Harvester Company produced a commercially successful commercial cotton picker in 1944. After World War II,
1566-427: The bolls matured at different rates. It was not practical to delay picking until all the bolls were ready for picking because the quality of the cotton deteriorated as soon as bolls opened. But about the time mechanical pickers were introduced, plant breeders developed hybrid cotton varieties with bolls higher off the ground and that ripened uniformly. With those innovations, the harvester could make just one pass through
1620-422: The carding machine in the form of a sliver: a large rope of fibres. In a wider sense, carding can refer to these four processes: Combing is optional, but is used to remove the shorter fibres, creating a stronger yarn. Several slivers are combined. Each sliver will have thin and thick spots, and by combining several slivers together, a more consistent size can be reached. Since combining several slivers produces
1674-422: The cotton yarn. Warp knits do not stretch as much as a weft knits, and they are run-resistant. A weft knit is not run-resistant, but it has more stretch. This is especially true if spools of elastane are processed from separate spool containers and interwoven through the cylinder with cotton yarn, giving the finished product more flexibility and preventing it from having a 'baggy' appearance. The average t-shirt
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1728-504: The dents of the reed and the eyes of the healds, in the order indicated by the draft. A pirn-winding frame was used to transfer the weft from cheeses of yarn onto the pirns that would fit into the shuttle. At this point, the thread is woven. Depending on the era, one person could manage anywhere from 3 to 100 machines. In the mid-nineteenth century, four was the standard number. A skilled weaver in 1925 could run 6 Lancashire Looms . As time progressed, new mechanisms were added that stopped
1782-410: The fabric is to be dyed a deep shade, then lower levels of bleaching are acceptable. However, for white bedding and for medical applications, the highest levels of whiteness and absorbency are essential. A further possibility is mercerising, during which the fabric is treated with a caustic soda solution, to cause swelling of the fibres. This results in improved lustre, strength and dye affinity. Cotton
1836-403: The fabric will shrink less upon laundering. Dyeing is commonly carried out with an anionic direct dye by completely immersing the fabric (or yarn) in an aqueous dye bath according to a prescribed procedure. For improved fastness to washing, rubbing and light, further dyeing methods can be used. These require more complex chemistry during processing, and are thus more expensive to apply. Printing
1890-409: The fibre. In a saw gin, circular saws grab the fibre and pull it through a grating that is too narrow for the seeds to pass. A roller gin is used with longer-staple cotton. Here, a leather roller captures the cotton. A knife blade, set close to the roller, detaches the seeds by drawing them through teeth in circular saws and revolving brushes which clean them away. The ginned cotton fibre, known as lint,
1944-413: The fibres, then passes over a plate heated by gas flames. During raising, the fabric surface is treated with sharp teeth to lift the surface fibres, thereby imparting downiness, softness and warmth, as in flannelette. Calendering is a process in which the fabric is passed between heated rollers to generate smooth, polished or embossed effects. Sanforisation is a form of mechanical pre-shrinking, so that
1998-402: The field. Also, herbicides were developed to defoliate the plants and drop their leaves before the picker came through, producing a cleaner harvest. The first harvesters were only capable of harvesting one row of cotton at a time, but were still able to replace up to forty hand laborers . The current cotton picker is a self-propelled machine that removes cotton lint and seed (seed-cotton) from
2052-878: The home to the mill, children were often allowed to help their older sisters, and laws had to be made to prevent child labour from becoming established. The working conditions of cotton production were often harsh, with long hours, low pay, and dangerous machinery. Children, above all, were also prone to physical abuse and often forced to work in unsanitary conditions. It should also be noted that Children who worked in handlooms often faced extreme poverty and were unable to obtain an education. The working conditions of cotton production were often harsh, with long hours, low pay, and dangerous machinery. Children, above all, were also prone to physical abuse and often forced to work in unsanitary conditions. It should also be noted that Children who worked in handlooms often faced extreme poverty and were unable to obtain an education. Knitting by machine
2106-552: The later help of his brother Mack Rust. Other inventors had tried designs with a barbed spindle to twist cotton fibers onto the spindle and then pull the cotton from the boll, but these early designs were impractical because the spindle became clogged with cotton. Rust determined that a smooth, moist spindle could be used to strip the fibers from the boll without trapping them in the machinery. In 1933 John Rust received his first patent , and eventually, he and his brother owned forty-seven patents on cotton picking machinery. However, during
2160-445: The lint makes it to the basket at the rear of the picker. The other type of picker is the "spindle" picker. It uses rows of barbed spindles that rotate at high speed and remove the seed-cotton from the plant. The seed-cotton is then removed from the spindles by a counter-rotating doffer and is then blown up into the basket. Once the basket is full the picker dumps the seed-cotton into a " module builder ". The module builder creates
2214-425: The longer staple needed for mechanised textile production. The planting season is from September to mid-November, and the crop is harvested between March and June. The cotton bolls are harvested by stripper harvesters and spindle pickers that remove the entire boll from the plant. The cotton boll is the seed pod of the cotton plant; attached to each of the thousands of seeds are fibres about 2.5 cm long. There
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2268-546: The loom any time something went wrong. The mechanisms checked for such things as broken warp or weft threads, the shuttle going straight across, and if the shuttle was empty. Forty of these Northrop Looms or automatic looms could be operated by one skilled worker. The three primary movements of a loom are shedding, picking, and beating-up. The Lancashire Loom was the first semi-automatic loom. Jacquard looms and Dobby looms are looms that have sophisticated methods of shedding. They may be separate looms or mechanisms added to
2322-490: The mills need irrigation, which spreads pests. The 5% of cotton-bearing land in India uses 55% of all pesticides used in India. Cotton picker In many societies, slave labor was utilized to pick the cotton, increasing the plantation owner's profit margins (See Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade ). The first practical cotton picker was invented over a period of years beginning in the late 1920s by John Daniel Rust (1892–1954) with
2376-491: The other finishing processes. At this stage, even the most naturally white cotton fibres are yellowish, and bleaching is required. Bleaching improves whiteness by removing natural colouration and whatever impurities remain in the cotton; the degree of bleaching is determined by the levels of whiteness and absorbency required of the fabric. Cotton, being a vegetable fibre, is bleached using an oxidizing agent , such as diluted sodium hypochlorite or diluted hydrogen peroxide . If
2430-507: The plant at up to six rows at a time. There are two types of pickers in use today. One is the "stripper" picker, primarily found in use in Texas. They are also found in Arkansas. It removes not only the lint from the plant, but a fair deal of the plant matter as well (such as unopened bolls ). Later, the plant matter is separated from the lint through a process dropping heavier matter before
2484-424: The required length of yarn and winds it onto warpers' bobbins. Racks of bobbins are set up to hold the thread while it is wound onto the warp beam of a loom. Because the thread is fine, often three of these would be combined to get the desired number of ends. A sizing machine is needed for strengthening the warp by adding starch, to reduce breakage. The process of drawing each end of the warp separately through
2538-408: The roving is pulled off a bobbin and fed through rollers, which are feeding at several different speeds. This thins the roving at a consistent rate. If the roving was not a consistent size, then this step could cause a break in the yarn, or jam the machine. The yarn is twisted through the spinning of the bobbin as the carriage moves out, and is rolled onto a cylinder called a spindle, which then produces
2592-427: The size that has been used, the cloth may be steeped in a dilute acid and then rinsed, or enzymes may be used to break down the size. Scouring is a chemical washing process carried out on cotton fabric to remove natural waxes and non-fibrous impurities (like the remains of seed fragments) from the fibres and any soiling or dirt that might remain. Scouring is usually carried out in iron vessels called kiers . The fabric
2646-400: The tail of formed yarn that is continually being drawn out of the chamber. Other methods of break spinning use needles and electrostatic forces. This method has replaced the older methods of ring and mule spinning. It is also easily adapted for artificial fibres . The spinning machines takes the roving, thins it and twists it, creating yarn which it winds onto a bobbin. In mule spinning
2700-431: The thread round and smooth and bright. Only the better qualities of yarn are gassed, like the kinds used for voiles, poplins, venetians, gabardines, Egyptian cottons, etc. The thread loses around 5-8% of its weight if it's gassed. The gassed yarn is darker in shade afterwards, but should not be scorched. The weaving process uses a loom . The lengthwise threads are known as the warp , and the crosswise threads are known as
2754-448: The twentieth century. Specifically, ancient civilizations in India, Egypt, China, sub-Saharan Africa, Eurasia, South America, and North and East Africa all had some forms of textile production. The first book about textile manufacturing is considered to be 'A Treatise on the Art of Weaving' by John Murphy. Cotton is the world's most important natural fibre. In the year 2007, the global yield
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#17327974179242808-662: The very first operational trial of the Draper Northrop automatic loom was made at the Seaconnet Mills. Further trials and improvements to the Northrop loom were made over the next year or so. In the following decades, the Northrop automatic loom would revolutionize the weaving industry, allowing a single operator to manage multiple looms at the same time. In 1930 the Seaconnett Mills were taken over by
2862-417: The western interchange between Interstate 195 and Massachusetts Route 24 in eastern Fall River. It includes two large stone buildings (the main spinning mill and the weave shed), joined by a narrow hyphen, with a cluster of ancillary buildings attached to the west side of the spinning mill. The spinning mill is a long rectangular four-story building with an exterior of rustically dressed granite blocks, and
2916-409: Was 25 million tons from 35 million hectares cultivated in more than 50 countries. There are six stages to the manufacturing of cotton textiles: Cotton is grown in locations with long, hot, dry summers with plenty of sunshine and low humidity. Indian cotton, Gossypium arboreum , is finer but the staple is only suitable for hand processing. American cotton, Gossypium hirsutum , produces
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