Cotton Education Adventure: The Cotton Gin

A panoramic view behind the cotton gin building. Hundreds of bales straight from the field waiting to be processed.

The Bogue Chitto Cotten Gin!!

I'm finally getting around to composing this blog update. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to write it up, especially since I've had the pictures loaded in the draft mode since a day or two after our visit. 

.....actually, I probably do know why... I allowed myself to get distracted... 

And now it's time to get it done...

This is the third update in my journey learning about cotton. 

Cotton Education Adventure part 1 is about the fields.

Cotton Education Adventure part 2 is about the harvesting with combines.

In late October I was invited to tour the Bogue Chitto Cotton Gin. 

Bogue Chitto means Big Creek in the Choctaw language. And I was told the Bogue Chitto river runs near by. 

This cotton gin is run by 20+ workers around the clock during the season. The season runs about 3 months. They have to process the cotton quickly because it's sitting on the ground and will get ruined if it gets too damp.

In off season, there are still about 5 workers maintaining the buildings and equipment. 

The Bogue Chitto Gin is about 4 years old. It is kept very clean, as cotton is very flammable!!

Driving up to the gin there's a good view of rows and rows of bales of cotton. This photo is actually a view from behind the gin. The view is pretty much the same on all sides of the building, hundreds of bales waiting to be processed, it's no wonder the gin runs 24/7! The ends are marked to identify which farmer the bale belongs to.

We saw a steady stream of truck loads delivered during our visit. (We also learned to be careful walking to our cars as the trucks are not used to pedestrians around!)

The beginning of the ginning process... The cotton will be sent through a dehumidifier to dry the "lint" but not the seed. And sent through two cleaners to remove dirt, twigs and leaves.

 

There are two machines doing the actual ginning (removing the seed from the cotton). It has saw-like blades that catch the lint and allow the seeds to fall through... To the left of these machines is a recycler that catches the bolls that slip through and send them right back to be ginned again.

In this photo you can see just how clean the cotton gin is kept!

After the cotton is ginned it's sent through a humidifier to re-hydrate the lint to a certain percentage. I didn't seem to get a picture of that machine as it was in the far corner. I found it fascinating that one of the first steps was to dehydrate just to re-hydrate later!

The noise from all of these machines running is deafening!

The cotton lint is pressed into a bale and wrapped with strong plastic straps.

The bales are 500 lbs each.

Then it moves through the next machine that wraps it with plastic and it's tagged with the owners name and ready to be sent to the warehouse.

So, what was very interesting to hear was that there is no money exchanged between farmer and the cotton gin! The farmer delivers the bales to be ginned, the cotton gin processes it and sends it to the warehouse to be sold. As payment the cotton gin gets to keep the cotton seeds! The seeds are sold for various purposes like cattle feed, cotton seed oil, or next years crops!

The seeds are piped in from the cotton gin, falling to the ground from the top of the roof making a huge mountain of seeds!!

NOTHING goes to waste! This is the "trash" pile behind the building. It's all the twigs, leaves, dirt and stuff that had been removed from the cotton. The gin also sells this as compost. 

And why am I so fascinated with cotton? 

.... Because quilters LOVE 100% cotton fabrics!! (disclaimer: I know there are some exceptions, nothing wrong with using other fibers! That's a different story :p).

 ..... Because so much of American history and Southern history revolves around cotton. 

..... probably, mostly because I love that fabric can be made from a single seed!!! That's truly amazing!!

Karen Arzemendi and I set up a cotton display at the MQA Fall Gathering hosted by our PTQ guild.
special thanks to my daughter for making us a display board :).