Singer 404?
11-24-2013, 12:43 PM
#21
Power Poster
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Somewhere
Posts: 15,507
Originally Posted by ThayerRags
Yes, they’re very large! I patterned my design after measuring a few of the vintage adult bags that the museum has for display only, so the authentic bags were actually made that big. Of course, many farm wives made their own, so there were lots of designs and sizes. Stores sold them too, but most of those differed in design from each other’s brand. There were also smaller bags that were made for children, but the museum decided to have me make the new ones adult-size because they’re showing the kids how adults used to do things. It’s seldom that the kids in the school program get much more cotton picked than could fit in a small laundry basket, and to tell you the truth, it’s a hoot to watch the kids dragging the large bags up and down the rows with hardly a bulge in the end of the bag. The kids can see how much picking it would require to fill those bags!
Edited to add: and how HEAVY those bags must have gotten!
We have a couple of authentic ones in our shop that were used on a farm just west of town. Cotton sacks pop up at auctions every once in a while, usually still in good shape. (The farmers took good care of them so that they didn’t have to replace them any more than they had to.) Ours have been mended several times, so that was interesting to me to see how they did their mending “back in the day”.
CD in Oklahoma
Edited to add: and how HEAVY those bags must have gotten!
We have a couple of authentic ones in our shop that were used on a farm just west of town. Cotton sacks pop up at auctions every once in a while, usually still in good shape. (The farmers took good care of them so that they didn’t have to replace them any more than they had to.) Ours have been mended several times, so that was interesting to me to see how they did their mending “back in the day”.
CD in Oklahoma
11-24-2013, 01:27 PM
#23
Super Member
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Frederick, OK
Posts: 2,031
I should tell you that I wasn’t raised around cotton, and am a transplant to the area. I’ve only been here for about 25 years, so I’ll need to be careful that I don’t guess at how things were done in the cotton harvest back when they did it by hand. I’ve talked to several people who have picked cotton by hand, but I never have myself. All I know is what I’ve been told.
I bought the two (authentic) cotton sacks at the auction, because they announced what farm that they came from. I had helped harvest cotton on that farm (working for a farmer that had it leased) with modern machinery in 2005. My job was operating the Module Builder. Instead of dumping the cotton from the Stripper (harvester) into 4-wheel wagons with high sides as they had done for years between hand-picking and modules, they dumped it into a machine that uses hydraulics to press the cotton into a large module setting on the ground. The Module Builder back door is opened and the machine is moved by farm tractor to another location to build another module. A large truck with a self-loader from the gin arrives later to take the module to the gin.
I don’t think very many in this area still use the 4-wheel cotton trailers anymore, and I think that I saw in the newspaper a while back that the gin even took out their giant vacuum machine that they used to suck the cotton out of the trailers. My wife and I used to like it when cotton harvest came back in the trailer days. The roadsides would be white with the cotton that blew out of the trailers on the way to the gin, and it looked like we had snow. I imagine that the farmers are glad to not see all of that cotton going to waste anymore (the module trucks are enclosed except for the rear). There’s a little bit of cotton along the roads these days, but not like it used to be.
On the flip side, the trailer days included a lot more slow-moving vehicles to watch out for on the roads. Farmers would hitch several trailers together end-to-end and pull them to the gin with a pickup truck. The slack in the steering axles on the older trailers would allow the trailers to wonder from side to side across the road, and seldom in synchronization with each other, so the string of trailers resembled a snake going down the road. LOL
CD in Oklahoma
I bought the two (authentic) cotton sacks at the auction, because they announced what farm that they came from. I had helped harvest cotton on that farm (working for a farmer that had it leased) with modern machinery in 2005. My job was operating the Module Builder. Instead of dumping the cotton from the Stripper (harvester) into 4-wheel wagons with high sides as they had done for years between hand-picking and modules, they dumped it into a machine that uses hydraulics to press the cotton into a large module setting on the ground. The Module Builder back door is opened and the machine is moved by farm tractor to another location to build another module. A large truck with a self-loader from the gin arrives later to take the module to the gin.
I don’t think very many in this area still use the 4-wheel cotton trailers anymore, and I think that I saw in the newspaper a while back that the gin even took out their giant vacuum machine that they used to suck the cotton out of the trailers. My wife and I used to like it when cotton harvest came back in the trailer days. The roadsides would be white with the cotton that blew out of the trailers on the way to the gin, and it looked like we had snow. I imagine that the farmers are glad to not see all of that cotton going to waste anymore (the module trucks are enclosed except for the rear). There’s a little bit of cotton along the roads these days, but not like it used to be.
On the flip side, the trailer days included a lot more slow-moving vehicles to watch out for on the roads. Farmers would hitch several trailers together end-to-end and pull them to the gin with a pickup truck. The slack in the steering axles on the older trailers would allow the trailers to wonder from side to side across the road, and seldom in synchronization with each other, so the string of trailers resembled a snake going down the road. LOL
CD in Oklahoma
11-24-2013, 05:12 PM
#24
Super Member
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: West Texas
Posts: 2,073
CD, what wonderful information about the cotton picking! That cotton field trip would be a great experience for kids, but I think they should have the smaller kid bags for an authentic feel of what kids their age did. I live next door to the cotton grading supervisor in Lubbock, and cotton is part of our culture. I wish more young people could see segments of the industry close up.
Dayle
Dayle
11-25-2013, 03:40 AM
#25
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Victorian Sweatshop
Posts: 863
I nearly choked on my coffee when I saw the cotton sack. I picked cotton from the age of 5. Those cotton rows were so long, the sun so hot. The last time I picked a hundred pounds in one day, 13 years old. Whenever the going gets tough, I put my head down and 'keep pickin cotton', cause I know that row will end. Thanks for the memory.
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