and the spaces and results in improved drying by the time the cotton has reached the bottom of the dryer its moisture has been reduced and the trash has at this point in the process the least tendency to cling to the cotton consequently we have discovered that much of the trash can be best removed from the cotton by directly running it through a cleaner 70 and without re compacting the cotton and trash by transferring it to a distant cleaner through piping to that end and as shown in fig3 the cleaner 70 of our invention is positioned directly below the dryer 40 other than positioning and having a large access opening to the dryer 40 within the system the cleaner 70 may be a conventional multi cylinder horizontal line cleaner having a plurality of spike cylinders 74 that extend to the outside of the housing where they are rotatably driven by a belt and pulley system preferably the access opening between the dryer 40 and the cleaner 70 extends for the entire width of the dryer 40 and across at least one third of its length as shown in fig3 the cotton and any associated trash flows downward past the left side of the bottom paddle cylinder and into the cleaner 70 in an unobstructed manner and without compaction upon reaching the cleaner 70 the cotton is picked up by the spikes 72 on a conventional rotating spike cylinder 74 and is dragged across a plurality of spaced apart elongated cylinder grid bars 76 which are preferably arranged to define semi circular pattern of a radius just greater than that of the spikes 72.