Editing Cotton gin

{{Short description|Machine that separates cotton from seeds}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2013}}
[[Image:Cotton gin EWM 2007.jpg|thumb|300px|A model of a 19th-century cotton gin on display at the [[Eli Whitney Museum]] in [[Hamden, Connecticut]]]]  

A '''cotton gin'''—meaning "cotton [[engine]]"<ref name="GeorgiaEncyclopedia">{{Cite web|url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cotton-gins/|title=Cotton Gins|website=New Georgia Encyclopedia}}</ref><ref name"merriamwebster"="">{{Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gin|title=Definition of GIN|website=Merriam-webster.com}}</ref>—is a machine that quickly and easily separates [[cotton]] fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.<ref name="Roe1916">{{citation | last = Roe | first = Joseph Wickham | title = English and American Tool Builders | publisher = Yale University Press | year = 1916 | location = New Haven, Connecticut | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=X-EJAAAAIAAJ | lccn = 16011753}}. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 ({{LCCN|27024075}}); and by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, Illinois, ({{ISBN|978-0-917914-73-7}}).</ref> The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce [[cottonseed oil]]. 
 
Handheld roller gins had been used in the [[Indian subcontinent]] since at earliest 500 and then in other regions.<ref name=LakGin/> The Indian [[worm gear|worm-gear]] roller gin was invented sometime around the 16th century<ref name=india>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K8kO4J3mXUAC&q=Worm-Gear+Gin+India&pg=PA53|title=Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500|first=Irfan|last=Habib|date=February 3, 2018|publisher=Pearson Education India|via=Google Books|isbn=9788131727911}}</ref> and has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by English-American inventor [[Eli Whitney]] in 1793 and patented in 1794. 

Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also inadvertently led to the [[Slavery in the United States|growth of slavery]] in the [[Confederate States of America|American South]]. Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable<ref>{{Cite web |title=The cotton gin: A game-changing social and economic invention {{!}} Constitution Center |url=https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-cotton-gin-a-game-changing-social-and-economic-invention |access-date=2025-01-09 |website=National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org |language=en}}</ref> and efficient so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more of their [[slavery|slaves]] to pick cotton. Whitney never invented the machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the [[American Civil War]].<ref name=WarCause/> Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors.<ref name=AboutGin>[https://archive.today/20130101184015/http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin_2.htm inventors.about.com]; "Background on the Cotton Gin", retrieved October 22, 2010.</ref>

==Purpose==
[[File:Cotton.JPG|thumb|right|A cotton boll. Each boll contains several dozen seeds.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cotton.org/tech/physiology/cpt/plantphysiology/upload/CPT-Aug94-REPOP.pdf |work=Cotton Physiology Today |title=Cotton Fruit Development: the Boll |date=August 1994 |first=Derrick |last=Oosterhuis |first2=Mac |last2=Stewart |first3=Dave |last3=Guthrie |access-date=16 February 2024 }}</ref>]]
Cotton fibers are produced in the seed pods ("bolls") of the [[cotton plant]] where the fibers ("lint") in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds. To make the fibers usable, the seeds and fibers must first be separated, a task which had been previously performed manually, with production of cotton requiring hours of labor for the separation. Many simple seed-removing devices had been invented, but until the innovation of the cotton gin, most required significant operator attention and worked only on a small scale.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bellis |first=Mary |url=http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm |work=inventors.about.com |title=The Cotton Gin and Eli Whitney |access-date=March 12, 2012 |archive-date=July 22, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120722151550/http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Mechanism==
{{expand section|with=details about other kinds of gins; Whitney's is not the only kind|date=February 2023}}
Whitney's gin is made with two rotating cylinders. The first cylinder has lines of teeth around the circumference, and angled against this cylinder is a metal plate with small holes, "ginning ribs", through which the teeth can fit with minimal gaps. The teeth grip the cotton fibers as the mechanism rotates, dragging them through these small holes. The seeds are too big to fit through the holes, and are thus removed from the rotating cotton by the metal plate, before they fall into a collecting pot. On the other side of the first cylinder, there is a second cylinder, also rotating, with brushes attached. This second cylinder wipes the cotton from the first, and deposits it into the collecting bucket.

The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an [[oil mill]] to be further processed into [[cottonseed oil]] and [[cottonseed meal]]. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour.

==History==
[[File:Indian woman gining cotton.jpg|left|thumb|An Indian woman ginning cotton c.1815-20]]
A single-roller cotton gin came into use in India by the 5th century. An improvement invented in India was the two-roller gin, known as the "churka", "charki", or "wooden-worm-worked roller".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2013/06/making-cotton-the-tools-of-the-trade/|title=Making Cotton – The Tools of The Trade|date=2013-06-05|website=Fifteeneightyfour – Academic Perspectives from Cambridge University Press|access-date=September 9, 2018}}</ref>

===Early cotton gins===
The earliest versions of the cotton gin consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of [[Buddhist]] paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the [[Ajanta Caves]] in western [[India]].<ref name=LakGin/> These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a [[metate|mealing stone]], which was used to grind grain. The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools.<ref name=LakGin>[[#Lakwete|Lakwete]], 1–6.</ref>

===Medieval and Early Modern India===
[[File:Neuthoni, an instrument to separate cotton from its seeds.jpg|thumb|A Neuthoni, a type of [[Worm drive|worm gear]] cotton gin from [[Assam]].]]
Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by waterpower.<ref name=Baber1>Baber, Zaheer (1996). ''The Science of Empire: Scientific Knowledge, Civilization, and Colonial Rule in India''. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 57. {{ISBN|0-7914-2919-9}}.</ref>

The [[worm gear]] roller gin, which was invented in the [[Indian subcontinent]] during the early [[Delhi Sultanate]] era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the [[Mughal Empire]] sometime around the 16th century,<ref>[[Irfan Habib]] (2011), [https://books.google.com/books?id=K8kO4J3mXUAC&pg=PA53 ''Economic History of Medieval India, 1200–1500'', p. 53], [[Pearson Education]]</ref> and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day.<ref name=LakGin/> Another innovation, the incorporation of the [[Crank (mechanism)|crank]] handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire.<ref>[[Irfan Habib]] (2011), [https://books.google.com/books?id=K8kO4J3mXUAC&pg=PA53 ''Economic History of Medieval India, 1200–1500'', pp. 53–54], [[Pearson Education]]</ref> The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era.<ref>[[Irfan Habib]] (2011), [https://books.google.com/books?id=K8kO4J3mXUAC&pg=PA54 ''Economic History of Medieval India, 1200–1500'', p. 54], [[Pearson Education]]</ref>

It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labor was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly.<ref>[[Karl Marx]] (1867). Chapter 16: "Machinery and Large-Scale Industry". ''[[Das Kapital]]''.</ref>

===United States===
[[Image:Cotton gin harpers.jpg|thumb|"The First Cotton Gin", an engraving from ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', 1869. This carving depicts a roller gin being used by African slaves, which preceded Eli Whitney's invention.<ref>[[Cotton gin#Lakwete|Lakwete]], 182.</ref>|left]]The Indian roller cotton gin, known as the ''churka'' or ''charkha'', was introduced to the United States in the mid-18th century, when it was adopted in the [[southern United States]]. The device was adopted for cleaning [[long-staple cotton]] but was not suitable for the [[short-staple cotton]] that was more common in certain states such as [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. Several modifications were made to the Indian roller gin by Mr. Krebs in 1772 and Joseph Eve in 1788, but their uses remained limited to the long-staple variety, up until Eli Whitney's development of a short-staple cotton gin in 1793.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hargrett|first1=Elizabeth|last2=Dobbs|first2=Chris|title=Cotton Gins|url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cotton-gins|website=[[New Georgia Encyclopedia]]|date=6 June 2017}}</ref>

===Eli Whitney's patent===
[[Image:Patent for Cotton Gin (1794) - hi res.jpg|thumb|Eli Whitney's original cotton gin patent, dated March 14, 1794]]
[[Eli Whitney]] (1765–1825) applied for a [[patent]] of his cotton gin on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. Whitney's patent was assigned patent number 72X.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/ss/patent_X72.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140321060408/http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/ss/patent_X72.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 21, 2014|title=Who Invented the Cotton Gin and How Did it Impact History?}}</ref> There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the modern cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on the subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in ''The Library of Southern Literature''. In this article, the author claimed [[Catharine Littlefield Greene]] suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. Greene's alleged role in the invention of the gin has not been verified independently.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findingdulcinea.com/features/profiles/l/catharine-littlefield-greene.html|title=Catharine Littlefield Greene, Brain Behind the Cotton Gin|publisher=Finding Dulcinea|date=March 4, 2010|access-date=November 6, 2013|archive-date=March 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309065315/http://www.findingdulcinea.com/features/profiles/l/catharine-littlefield-greene.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Whitney's cotton gin model was capable of cleaning {{convert|50|lb|kg}} of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden cylinder covered by rows of slender wires which caught the fibers of the cotton bolls. Each row of wires then passed through the bars of a comb-like grid, pulling the cotton fibers through the grid as they did.<ref name=harr>Harr, M. E. (1977). ''Mechanics of particulate media: A probabilistic approach''. McGraw-Hill.</ref> The comb-like teeth of the grids were closely spaced, preventing the seeds, fragments of the hard dried calyx of the original cotton flower, or sticks and other debris attached to the fibers from passing through. A series of brushes on a second rotating cylinder then brushed the now-cleaned fibers loose from the wires, preventing the mechanism from jamming.

Many contemporary inventors attempted to develop a design that would process [[short staple cotton]], and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, [[William Longstreet]], and John Murray had all been issued patents for improvements to the cotton gin by 1796.<ref>[[#Lakwete|Lakwete]], 64–76.</ref> However, the evidence indicates Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies, a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally enforceable – too late for him to make much money from the device in the single year remaining before the patent expired.<ref>''The American Historical Review'' by Henry Eldridge Bourne, Robert Livingston Schuyler
Editors: 1895 – July 1928; J.F. Jameson and others.; Oct. 1928–Apr. 1936, H.E. Bourne and others; July 1936–Apr. 1941, R.L. Schuyler and others; July 1941– G.S. Ford and others. Published 1991, American Historical Association [etc.], pp 90–101.</ref>

===McCarthy's gin===
While Whitney's gin facilitated the cleaning of seeds from short-staple cotton, it damaged the fibers of extra-long staple cotton (''[[Gossypium barbadense]]''). In 1840 Fones McCarthy received a patent for a "Smooth Cylinder Cotton-gin", a roller gin. McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton. After McCarthy's patent expired in 1861, McCarthy type gins were manufactured in Britain and sold around the world.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Lakwete|first1=Angela|title=Fones McCarthy|url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1028|website=Encyclopedia of Alabama|publisher=Auburn University|access-date=13 October 2017}}</ref> McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It cleaned cotton several times faster than the older gins, and, when powered by one horse, produced 150 to 200 pounds of lint a day.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Shofner|first1=Jerrel H.|last2=Rogers|first2=William Warren|title=Sea Island Cotton in Ante-Bellum Florida|journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly|date=April 1962|volume=40|issue=4|pages=378–79}}</ref> The McCarthy gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint. Vibration caused by the reciprocating motion limited the speed at which the gin could operate. In the middle of the 20th Century gins using a rotating blade replaced ones using a reciprocating blade. These descendants of the McCarthy gin are the only gins now used for extra-long staple cotton in the United States.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gillum|first1=Marvis M.|last2=Van Doorn|first2=D. W.|last3=Norman|first3=B.M.|last4=Owen|first4=Charles|editor1-last=Anthony|editor1-first=Stanley W.|editor2-last=Mayfield|editor2-first=William D.|title=Cotton Ginner's Handbook|date=1994|publisher=United States Department of Agriculture|page=244|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XxSI5iP_f5AC&q=mccarthy+cotton+gin&pg=PA244|access-date=13 October 2017|chapter=Roller Ginning|isbn=9780788124204}}</ref>

===Munger system gin===
[[File:Nation's Oldest Cotton Gin -- Burton, Texas.jpg|200px|right|thumb|The diesel-powered gin in Burton, Texas is one of the oldest in the United States that still functions.]]
For a decade and a half after the end of the Civil War in 1865, a number of innovative features became widely used for ginning in the United States. They included steam power instead of animal power, an automatic feeder to assure that the gin stand ran smoothly, a condenser to make the clean cotton coming out of the gin easier to handle, and indoor presses so that cotton no longer had to be carried across the gin yard to be baled.<ref>Aiken, Charles S. (April 1973). "The Evolution of Cotton Ginning in the Southeastern United States". Geographical Review. 63 (2): 205.</ref> Then, in 1879, while he was running his father's gin in [[Rutersville, Texas]], [[Robert S. Munger]] invented additional system ginning techniques. Robert and his wife, Mary Collett, later moved to [[Mexia, Texas]], built a system gin, and obtained related patents.<ref> Mann, Sally (2016). Hold still : a memoir with photographs. Little, Brown and Company. pp. 314–317. {{ISBN|978-0-316-24775-7}}.</ref>

The Munger System Ginning Outfit (or system gin) integrated all the ginning operation machinery, thus assuring the cotton would flow through the machines smoothly. Such system gins use air to move cotton from machine to machine.<ref>Atkinson, Edward (June 1, 1880). "Report on the Cotton Manufacturers of the United States". In Department of Interior, Census Office. Report on the Manufacturers of the United States at the Tenth Census. Government Printing Office. pp. 937–984.</ref> Munger's motivation for his inventions included improving employee working conditions in the gin. However, the selling point for most gin owners was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality.<ref>Mann, Sally (2016). Hold still : a memoir with photographs. Little, Brown and Company. p. 318. {{ISBN|978-0-316-24775-7}}.</ref>

By the 1960s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the manner in which cotton flowed through the gin machinery continued to be the Munger system.<ref>Aiken, Charles S. (April 1973). "The Evolution of Cotton Ginning in the Southeastern United States". Geographical Review. 63 (2): 205–206.</ref>

Economic Historian William H. Phillips referred to the development of system ginning as "The Munger Revolution" in cotton ginning.<ref> Phillips, William (1994). "Making a Business of It: The Evolution of Southern Cotton Gin Patenting, 1831-1890". Agricultural History. 68 (2): 88, 90.</ref> He wrote,

"The Munger innovations were the culmination of what geographer Charles S. Aiken has termed the second ginning revolution, in which the privately owned plantation gins were replaced by large-scale public ginneries. This revolution, in turn, led to a major restructuring of the cotton gin industry, as the small, scattered gin factories and shops of the nineteenth century gave way to a dwindling number of large twentieth-century corporations designing and constructing entire ginning operations."<ref> Phillips, William (1994). "Making a Business of It: The Evolution of Southern Cotton Gin Patenting, 1831-1890". Agricultural History. 68 (2): 85–86.</ref>

One of the few (and perhaps only) examples of a Munger gin left in existence is on display at [[Frogmore Plantation]] in Louisiana.

===Effects in the United States===
[[Image:17 09 024 jarrell.jpg|thumb|left|Cotton gin at [[Jarrell Plantation]]]]
Prior to the introduction of the mechanical cotton gin, cotton had required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds.<ref>Hamner, Christopher. [http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24411 teachinghistory.org], "The Disaster of Innovation", retrieved July 11, 2011.</ref> With Eli Whitney's gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the [[History of the United States (1789–1849)|Antebellum South]]. Cities such as [[New Orleans, Louisiana]]; [[Mobile, Alabama]]; [[Charleston, South Carolina]]; and [[Galveston, Texas]] became major shipping ports, deriving substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout the South. Additionally, the greatly expanded supply of cotton created strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs that replaced wooden parts with metal. This led to the invention of many [[machine tool]]s in the early 19th century.<ref name="Roe1916"/>

The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850.  As a result, the region became even more dependent on [[plantations in the American South|plantations]] that used black slave labor, with plantation agriculture becoming the largest sector of its economy.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Pierson, Parke |url=http://www.historynet.com/seeds-of-conflict.htm|title=Seeds of conflict|journal=America's Civil War|date=September 2009|volume=22|issue= 4|page=25}}</ref> While it took a single laborer about ten hours to separate a single pound of fiber from the seeds, a team of two or three slaves using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just one day.<ref>Woods, Robert (September 1, 2009). "A Turn of the Crank Started the Civil War." ''Mechanical Engineering''.</ref> The number of slaves rose in concert with the increase in cotton production, increasing from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 3.2 million in 1850.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Smith, N. Jeremy|title=Making Cotton King|journal=World Trade|date= July 2009|volume=22|issue=7|page=82}}</ref> The invention of the cotton gin led to increased demands for slave labor in the [[Southern United States|American South]], reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Robert O. Woods|title=How the Cotton Gin Started the Civil War|journal=The American Society of Mechanical Engineers |date=December 28, 2010|access-date=17 September 2020|url=https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/how-the-cotton-gin-started-the-civil-war}}</ref> The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse".<ref>{{cite journal|author=Underhill, Paco|title=The cotton gin, oil, robots and the store of 2020|journal=Display & Design Ideas|volume=20|issue=10 |year=2008|pages=48}}</ref>
[[Image:Lummus Cotton Gin Advertisement.JPG|thumb|right|An 1896 advertisement for the Lummus cotton gin]]

The invention of the cotton gin led to an increase in the use of slaves on Southern plantations. Because of that inadvertent effect on American slavery, which ensured that the South's economy developed in the direction of plantation-based agriculture (while encouraging the growth of the textile industry elsewhere, such as in the North), the invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the indirect causes of the American Civil War.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Follett |first=Richard |title=Plantation kingdom: the American South and its global commodities |last2=Beckert |first2=Sven |last3=Coclanis |first3=Peter A. |last4=Hahn |first4=Barbara |date=2016 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-1-4214-1940-4 |series=The Marcus Cunliffe lecture series |location=Baltimore}}</ref><ref name=WarCause>{{Cite web |last=Kelly |first=Kelly |date=July 21, 2020 |title=What Were the Top 4 Causes of the Civil War |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/top-causes-of-the-civil-war-104532 |access-date=September 11, 2023 |website=ThoughtCo}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ryan |first=Joe |title=What Caused the American Civil War |url=https://americancivilwar.com/kids_zone/causes.html |access-date=September 11, 2023}}</ref>

==Modern cotton gins==
[[Image:ginplant.jpg|thumb|left|Diagram of a modern cotton gin plant, displaying numerous stages of production]]
[[File:Cotton jins in use.jpg|thumb|right|Modern cotton gins]]
In modern cotton production, cotton arrives at industrial cotton gins either in trailers, in compressed rectangular "[[cotton module builder|modules]]" weighing up to 10 [[metric ton]]s each or in polyethylene wrapped round modules similar to a bale of hay produced during the picking process by the most recent generation of cotton pickers. Trailer cotton (i.e. cotton not compressed into modules) arriving at the gin is sucked in via a pipe, approximately {{convert|16|in|cm}} in diameter, that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually manually operated but is increasingly automated in modern cotton plants. The need for trailers to haul the product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts the largest pieces of foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton.

The cotton then enters a dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating, spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton.  Finer foreign material, such as soil and leaves, passes through rods or screens for removal.  The stick machine uses [[centrifugal force]] to remove larger foreign matter, such as sticks and burrs, while the cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders.

[[image:Ginstand.jpg |thumb |300px |The internals of a cotton gin]]

The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an [[auger conveyor]] system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an [[oil mill]] to be further processed into [[cottonseed oil]] and [[cottonseed meal]]. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to {{convert|15|t|lb}} of cotton per hour.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Page 3 : USDA ARS|url=https://www.ars.usda.gov/southeast-area/stoneville-ms/cotton-ginning-research/docs/overview-of-a-cotton-gin/page-3/|access-date=2021-11-25|website=www.ars.usda.gov}}</ref>

Modern cotton gins create a substantial amount of cotton gin residue (CGR) consisting of sticks, leaves, dirt, immature bolls, and cottonseed. Research is currently under way to investigate the use of this waste in producing [[ethanol]]. Due to fluctuations in the chemical composition in processing, there is difficulty in creating a consistent ethanol process, but there is potential to further maximize the utilization of waste in cotton production.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals|first1=Foster A.|last1=Agblevor|first2=Sandra|last2=Batz|first3=Jessica|last3=Trumbo|date=February 3, 2018|publisher=Humana Press, Totowa, NJ|pages=219–230|doi=10.1007/978-1-4612-0057-4_17|chapter = Composition and Ethanol Production Potential of Cotton Gin Residues|isbn = 978-1-4612-6592-4}}</ref><ref name=AboutGin/>

==See also==
*[[Prattville Gin Factory]]
*[[Cotton bale]]
{{-}}
==References==
'''Notes'''
{{Reflist}}

'''Bibliography'''
* {{cite book|ref=Lakwete|author=Lakwete, Angela|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uOMaGVnPfBcC |title=Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America|place= Baltimore|publisher= The Johns Hopkins University Press|year= 2003|isbn=9780801873942}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Cotton gins}}
{{Library resources box|onlinebooks=yes}}
* [http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=5260 Overview of a Cotton Gin] – [[United States Department of Agriculture|USDA]] site
* [http://www.cotton.org/pubs/cottoncounts/story/index.cfm The Story of Cotton] – National Cotton Council of America site
* [http://www.cotton.org/ncga/index.cfm National Cotton Ginners Association]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060502202031/http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/phillips.cottongin US Cotton Gin Industry] – EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic History
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070822170927/http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/archive/articleview.cfm?aid=31 Invention of Cotton Gin] – eHistory.com
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20170614194219/http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_30.html Cotton: the fiber of life] – includes a schematic diagram illustrating the seed removal process
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMZg2kLLs-Q Video of manual cotton gin in operation] via [[YouTube]]
* "The Old Cotton-gin" By John Trotwood Moore · 1910 [https://books.google.com/books?id=hlo-AQAAMAAJ&dq=Ancient+cotton+ginning&pg=PP7 The Old Cotton-gin]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotton Gin}}
[[Category:Cotton gin| ]]
[[Category:1769 introductions]]
[[Category:Agricultural machinery]]
[[Category:American inventions]]
[[Category:Cotton production]]
[[Category:Indian inventions]]
[[Category:Slavery in the United States]]
[[Category:Textile machinery]]
[[Category:Ancient inventions]]