Cotton picker

A cotton picker gets cotton from plants.

It can be a person. It can also be a machine. Long ago, people picked cotton by hand. This took a long time. Then, two brothers made a new machine. It used smooth parts to pull the fluff.

Now, big machines can pick many rows at once. They pick the fluff and the seeds. The machine puts the cotton into a big pile. This helps farmers grow more food and crops.

A cotton picker is a person or a machine. It harvests cotton from plants.

Long ago, people picked cotton by hand. This was very slow.

In the 1920s, John Rust and his brother Mack worked on a machine. Early designs used barbed spindles. A spindle is a thin rod that spins. These early machines got clogged with cotton. John Rust found a better way. He used smooth, moist spindles. This helped the cotton come off without getting stuck.

Farmers also changed how they grew cotton. They made new hybrid plants. These plants ripen at the same time. This lets a machine pick the whole field in one pass. They also use chemicals to drop the leaves first. This keeps the cotton clean.

Today, machines pick many rows at once. There are two main types. One is a stripper. It pulls the fluff and some plant parts. The machine then drops the heavy parts. The other is a spindle picker. It uses spinning rods to grab the cotton.

The machine puts the cotton into a big pile. This pile is called a module.

A cotton picker is a tool used to harvest cotton. It can be a person or a machine.

For a long time, people had to pick cotton by hand. In many places, slave labor was used to pick the crop. This helped plantation owners make more money. Harvesting by hand was a very slow job.

Machines changed how this work happens.

There are two main ways these machines work. One kind is called a stripper. These are common in Texas and Arkansas. They pull the soft lint and some plant parts from the field. The machine then drops the heavy plant parts before the lint reaches a basket. The other kind is a spindle picker. This machine uses rows of barbed spindles that spin very fast. These spindles grab the seed-cotton from the plant. A part called a doffer then moves the cotton into a basket.

Inventors worked hard to make these machines work well. John Daniel Rust began working on a design in the late 1920s. He worked with his brother, Mack Rust. Earlier machines used barbed spindles that often got clogged. John Rust found that smooth, moist spindles worked better. They could strip the fibers without getting stuck. In 1933, John Rust received his first patent. The brothers eventually owned forty-seven patents for their machines.

History shows how these machines grew in use. The Rust brothers started a company in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1935. They showed their picker in Stoneville, Mississippi, in 1936. It was not perfect, but it gained national attention. Other companies soon began making their own pickers. The International Harvester Company made a successful one in 1944. After World War II, the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company used an improved Rust design. These machines helped lead to the Second Great Migration.

Farmers also changed how they grow cotton to help the machines. In the past, bolls ripened at different times. This meant people had to pick the fields many times. Now, plant breeders make hybrid cotton. These plants ripen all at once. This allows a machine to pick the whole field in one pass. Farmers also use herbicides to drop the leaves before picking. This makes the harvest much cleaner. Today, some machines even build compact bricks of cotton called modules.

A cotton picker is a specialized tool used to harvest cotton. This term can describe a person who picks ripe fibers by hand or a machine known as a cotton harvester.

For much of history, harvesting was done by hand. In many societies, plantation owners used slave labor to pick the crop. This practice increased the profit margins for those owners. The transition from human labor to mechanical harvesting changed the agricultural industry forever.

Mechanical harvesting required significant engineering breakthroughs. Early inventors tried using barbed spindles to twist fibers onto a rotating part. These early designs were impractical because the spindles became clogged with cotton. In the late 1920s, John Daniel Rust began developing a new approach. He worked with his brother, Mack Rust, to solve the clogging problem. John Rust discovered that a smooth, moist spindle could strip fibers from the boll. This method allowed the machine to work without trapping the cotton in the mechanism.

The Rust brothers' journey was marked by both success and difficulty. John Rust received his first patent in 1933. Eventually, the brothers held forty-seven patents on cotton picking machinery. They founded the Rust Cotton Picker Company in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1935. In 1936, they demonstrated their machine at the Delta Experiment Station in Stoneville, Mississippi. Although the machine had deficiencies, it successfully picked cotton and gained national press coverage. However, the Great Depression made it hard to find financing for their inventions.

Following the Rust brothers' work, the industry saw rapid development. While the Rusts struggled with large-scale manufacturing, other companies began designing their own pickers. The manufacturing demands of World War II delayed the widespread use of these machines. In 1944, the International Harvester Company produced a commercially successful picker. After the war, the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company used an improved Rust design. These mechanical advancements were so significant that they were cited as a factor in the Second Great Migration.

To make these machines effective, farmers also had to change how they grew cotton. In the past, cotton bolls matured at different rates. This forced laborers to pick the same fields three or four times each season. If they waited for all bolls to open, the quality of the cotton would deteriorate. Modern plant breeders solved this by developing hybrid cotton varieties. These new plants have bolls that ripen uniformly and sit higher off the ground. Additionally, farmers use herbicides to defoliate the plants. This process drops the leaves before the machine arrives, ensuring a cleaner harvest.

Today, there are two primary types of mechanical pickers in use. The first is the "stripper" picker, which is common in Arkansas and Texas. This machine removes the lint along with various plant parts, such as unopened bolls. It separates the lint by dropping heavier matter before the fibers reach the rear basket. The second type is the "spindle" picker. This machine uses rows of barbed spindles that rotate at high speeds to grab the seed-cotton. A counter-rotating doffer then removes the cotton from the spindles and blows it into a basket.

Modern technology has made the harvesting process even more efficient. Early harvesters could only manage one row of cotton at a time. These machines could replace up to forty hand laborers. Current self-propelled machines can harvest up to six rows simultaneously. Once a basket is full, the machine dumps the seed-cotton into a module builder. This device creates a compact "brick" of cotton called a module. These modules weigh approximately 16 un-ginned bales.

In 2007, John Deere offered an on-board round module builder. By 2008, the Case IH Module Express 625 was designed to build these modules while harvesting.