The module of tightly packed cotton (cotton is dry like the clothes you love to wear).
Is then delivered to the cotton gin.
Here the module is ran through several cleaning machines–machines that take out the any bits of sticks, burrs and the seeds.
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, of whitch the fiber is almost pure celulose. The cotton fiber protects the sticky seed until it is time for it to ‘leave the plant’ and make a plant of it’s own.
The cotton plant is a shrub, and in the tropical deep south or other tropical areas of the world it is a perennial, therefore producing bolls all along. That is why in tropical areas the cotton is picked by a picking machine. The picking machine picks only the bolls that are ripe and broken open.
In subtropical regions…west Texas, the shrub is not treated as a perennial, but stripped taking all of the plant parts. It freezes in west Texas so the plant will die anyway.
The fiber is most often spun into yarn or a thread and then used to make soft, breathable fabric.
Once inside the gin machines pull and clean the cotton, plus seperating it from the cotton seeds.
The balls go through another process that stretches the balls and bales them together.
They then go to the packaging station
Where the 550 pound bales are wrapped ready for delivery to a factory
I hope you have enjoyed this tiny little window into a small part of the farming world of west Texas.
I have found that farmers and ranchers everywhere love the land. They take great care to take very good care of the land and the plants and the animals that live upon the land. One reason is this is how they make a living, but the other reason (and probably the most important reason) is it’s in their blood. In their dna, in the fiber of their beings.
Roy (he farms over 3,000 acres), Terry -farms in western Colorado, and Vadarae who owns several farms and invited us to “Come on down the Harvest is on!”
I have a few more delightful posts from the west Texas area that I will do soon. But Friday with Fuzzy and Boomer will be tomorrow!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
This is very interesting to me…..I’d love to see it firsthand.
LikeLike
These Cotton posts are wonderful! and Amen about Farmers and Ranchers loving the land. The photos are great. Thank you so much Linda 🙂
LikeLike
Another great post! We were talking cotton production in the barn while milking this morning because of your fascinating post yesterday. Today you have answered many of the questions our discussion raised.
LikeLike
I am constantly amazed how people have invented machines that do things like seperating cotton seeds from the bolls and the like. Very interesting and I loved the tour! Good luck with corn harvest as well!
LikeLike
So cool! Thanks for posting more pictures.
LikeLike
These cotton posts were wonderful! Thanks for sharing – always an education :-).
LikeLike
How interesting, I think it would be very cool to see the process first hand.
LikeLike
Where is this in West Texas (which is a totally huge area)? I don’t recall seeing anything growing there, except for near the rivers, or places like Balmorhae, where there is a huge spring. We have cotton in California, it’s grown near Bakersfield, which is a lot like West Texas, I think, except there’s more access to water. How does the fiber quality of dry-grown cotton compare to that grown in the south? Shucks, I can see I’m going to be on the internet this afternoon trying to figure this all out. And you’re totally right about farmers…the real kind, not the corporate kind.
LikeLike
This is a great post!! It brought back many memories of living on a cotton farm and going in a gin. There were 3 in our little town and at the peak of harvest some ran all night. We could tell from the sounds which one was running. The pictures are great, too.
LikeLike
Great post, Linda! It was interesting and informative to go thru the gin, wasn’t it? You didn’t mention how dusty it was in there!! 🙂
Blessings!
LikeLike
Wow—that is big business. I have never really thought about this huge process—but I am totally impressed.. Glad you got to spend some time with Vadarae.
Hugs,
Betsy
LikeLike
Great post..very interesting! Thanks for sharing your trip! 🙂
LikeLike
Of course I enjoyed this!
What has Fuzzy been up to?
LikeLike
Wow, that was very interesting! Thank you for sharing this.
LikeLike
Thanks for taking us to the cotton gin so we could see what happens after the cotton leaves the ranch. I found the entire series to be very lnteresting.
LikeLike
Very interesting! And you answered my question! Good to know! That bale of cleaned cotton looks heavenly! I’d like to take a nap on it, please. Or use some of it to re-do the padding on a couple 1950s wing back chairs I scored and need to recover. The texture of the cotton would be about the same as the stuffing in the chairs.
LikeLike