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Ginning is the process of separating the cotton fibers from the cotton seeds. Perfect ginning operation would be performed if the separation of fibers from seed was effected without the slightest injury to either seeds or to the fiber.

A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seeds, a job previously done by hand. These seeds are either used again to grow more cotton or, if badly damaged, are disposed of. It uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through the screen, while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. The term "gin" is an abbreviation for engine, and means "machine".

History of Ginning

The gin method for seeding cotton can be traced back as far as the first century AD. The earliest versions consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. Evidence for this type of gin has been found in Africa, Asia, and North America. The first documentation of the cotton gin by contemporary scholars is found in the fifth century AD. Visual evidence of the single-roller gin exists in the form of fifth-century Buddhist paintings in the Ajanta Caves in western India. These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a metate, which was used to grind grain. The earliest history of the cotton gin is ambiguous due to the fact that archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools.

Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, dual roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the two roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the sixteenth century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power.

The modern cotton gin was created by the American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 to mechanize the cleaning of cotton. The invention was granted a patent on March 14, 1794.

Many people attempted to develop a design that would process short staple cotton and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William Longstreet, and John Murray were all issued patents for improvement to the cotton gin by 1796. However, the evidence indicates that Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous.