Section B
The News-Journal
Thursday, November 14, 1985
Editorials ? Columns ? Features ? Classified ads
Baling is the business for fall at Oakdale Gin
By Lee Harris Potter
Although a modem cotton gin is
faster and more efficient than Eli
Whitney's original machine, its
function and processes have re
mained basically the same.
Most of the changes in the cot
ton business have occurred in the
growing and harvesting processes
and in the textile economy.
Julian Johnson said he has seen
enormous changes in the cotton in
dustry just in his 12 years as
business manager of the Oakdale
Gin near Raeford.
The small cotton growers have
gone out of business partly because
of the invention of expensive
mechanical cotton pickers in the
late 50's.
A regular spindle cotton
harvester now costs almost $75,000
and according to Johnson, the
costs of pesticides, herbicides, and
labor can add up to around $400
per acre.
In addition, homegrown cotton
can barely compete with cotton im
ported from China, Brazil and In
dia with their low labor costs.
The Oakdale Gin now serves
only five major customers, Jimmy
McGougan, John Balfour, Earl
Hendrix, David Dalton and Buddy
Newton.
The gin was constructed in the
1960's and is the fifth to be built
on the site a mile out of Raeford
on Highway 20.
It is owned by two sisters, Mrs.
June S. Johnson and Mrs. Agnes
May Campbell, and managed by
Mrs. Johnson's son, Julian
Johnson, and her son-in-law, Ed
die Baker.
The Johnson Company also in
cludes a wholesale fertilizer
business, a garden supply and
hardware store, and an insurance
agency.
The cotton gin only operates
during the harvest season, usually
from mid-September to
Thanksgiving.
The gin employs 10 men per
shift, operating two shifts during
half of the season, Johnson said.
Most of the workers collect
unemployment during the rest of
the year, he said. Unless they find
some work with the tobacco crop.
The Oakdale Gin must process
2,200 to 2,300 bales of cotton to
break even financially. One year
they may gin as few as 1 ,200 bales
and another year as many as 4,200
bales. This year Johnson expects to
process almost 3,800 bales.
But the current market price of
cotton is only 60 cents a pound,
and many farmers are storing the
baled cotton in the Hoke Cotton
Warehouse in hopes that the cot
ton will rise to 75 or 80 cents a
pound.
The 1985 cotton crop has been
good, yielding 900 pounds, or
almost two 500-pound bales, per
acre.
The raw cotton is brought to the
gin in wagons and sucked up by a
giant vacuum cleaner into the
building where it is blown through
pipes to the various machines by a
fan system.
The soft white lint is separated
from the cotton seeds and from the
hulls, twigs and other trash by
machines with spikes or circular
sawblades attached to drums
rotating at high speeds while the
cotton passes by.
The cottonseed drops to the bot
tom of the machines and is blown
through pipes to a holding tank
which dumps every accumulated
20 pounds into an outside storage
bin.
Cottonseed is sold as an ingre
dient of cattle fodder because of its
high protein content. The seeds are
also pressed into oil or ground into
meal.
When cottonseed prices are
good, the farmer trades the cot
tonseed for the ginning fees. This
year, however, cottonseed prices
are low -- $55 per ton compared to
last year's $170 per ton, and
Johnson said they will have to
charge $40 a bale for ginning the
cotton.
Another by-product of the gin
ning process is mote cotton.
Although it is of poor quality and
full of twigs and trash, it can be
sold to a company in Charlotte
which cleans and reprocesses it for
the usable lint.
Mote cotton was used in the old
days to stuff mattresses and horse
collars.
A sample of each cotton bale
must be sent for inspection and
grading to the United States
Department of Agriculture office
in Florence, S.C.
By the end of the process, the
cotton lint has been neatly tamped
into square bales which are secured
with metal bands.
The cotton fiber is probabjy of
no better quality than the cotton
produced by hand-ginning, said
Julian Johnson, but the demands
on human labor are considerably
reduced.
Inspecting machine
Julian Johnson, business manager of the Oakdaie Gin, inspects a machine
whose rotating cylinder of circular saw blades tears the cotton, separating
lint from seed and trash.
Demonstrates baler
Eddie Baker, operator of the Oak dale Gin, demonstrates the baling
machine operation. The gin must process 2,200 to 2,300 bales of cotton
during its two months of operation for the business to break even finan
cially. In a good year, they may make as many as 4,209 bales, but some
years they have baled as few as 1,200. Johnson said they expect to gin
3,800 bales of cotton this year. Eddie Baker said there are sometimes low
temperature fires burning In the cotton lint as It Is being dried by the hot
I air In the fan pipes. These are easily extinguished, but there have been ma
jor fires at the gin.
- ? ii * - WMP ~ .??? -
Sucking up cotton
James Campbell stands in the cotton wagon to push a giant vacuum hose which sucks the raw cotton into the gin building.
Down the shoot
Finally the cotton b blown down the shoot (right) into a baler machine. A
tamper presses the cotton Into one 0/ the two rectangular chambers, and
then the platform swivels so that one baler chamber can be opened and
metal bands secured around the bale of cotton while the other chamber Is
iu>. nn.J
Removing seeds
A fan system blows the cotton to the various machines through pipes a
foot in diameter, and it eventually reaches the two gins whowe tiny saw
blades tear out remaining seeds and trash.