Remove the stage-micrometer and put a slide of Sea Islands cotton in its place. Focus the fibre and observe the number of divisions or parts of a division covered by any particular fibre, and its measurement is at once known. Thus if a single filament covers two of the divisions then it is 2/2200th of an inch in diameter, or 1/1100th of an inch. Exactly the same method is adopted if it is desired to measure the diameters of sections of the same fibres. The making of the drawing of a fibre, either transverse or horizontal section, is not at all a difficult matter. All that is needed is what is known as a camera lucida. This consists of a brass fixing for the eye-piece end of the body-tube and a small reflecting prism. This prism receives the image of the objective, and reflects it in this case at right angles downward on to a sheet of paper, which is placed beneath for the purpose of tracing the said image. Focus the object, first having the microscope in a horizontal position. This will not be a difficult matter. Now remove the cap which fits on the eye-piece, and fix on the camera lucida as shown in the illustration (see Fig. 6). Adjust this until the image of the fibre is seen. Usually one or two smoke-coloured glasses are fixed below the prism, and these are now brought into position so as to allow the image of the fibre to pass through them. Place a sheet of drawing paper directly under the camera lucida, sitting as shown in the illustration. After a few trials it will not be a difficult matter to follow the outline of the image by means of a black lead on the paper as is shown in the figure. In this way many useful working drawings can be made, and a little careful calculation will give the amplification of the drawing after it is made. CHAPTER V. PLANTATION LIFE AND THE EARLY CLEANING PROCESSES. After many months of anxious watching and waiting, towards the end of July or early in August, the planter may be seen to be constantly and wistfully looking for the appearance of the bursting bolls of cotton. Daily in the early mornings he is to be seen casting his eyes down the pod-laden rows of cotton plants, to see if he can count a few ripe open bolls as he stands at the head of a row. If this be so, he knows that his harvest is close at hand, and his pickers must be ready at any moment to begin what is certainly the most tedious and difficult work of the plantation, namely, picking the raw cotton from the bursting bolls. While the planter has been on the lookout in the fields, necessary and important operations have been going on inside in the farm outbuildings. Sacks and baskets which can most expeditiously aid in the removal of the picked cotton from the field to the ginning factory are being got ready. To suit the young and old, tall and small, weak and strong, different sized bags and baskets are required, and after the marking and branding of the same, they are ready for being put into use.