Typical commercial West Texas Cottons, harvested using standard brush strippers, were selected for the presence of varying amounts of bark. Manual separation of bark from bale samples was used to obtain measures of gravimetric bark content prior to processing. The cottons were processed using standard carding, tandem carding, and double carding and then rotor spun into yarns for evaluation. The effect of the carding conditions on yarn quality and processing performance was determined. Double carding was effective in significantly improving processing performance by removal and/or reduction in size of bark fragments.