This is a device from Cotton Card-Room Machinery, a catalog published by Whitlin Machine Works.
I can’t say much about how it works because I’ve never been in a cotton card-room. All I can say is this detaching roll mechanism is part of an improved combing machine, and that it’s also called a “drawing-off roll.” I imagine that means this device somehow detaches or draws off cotton fibers, probably from the stems and seeds of the plant, which I think is what “combing” was for. Unless “combing” was to get the already-cleaned fibers all lined up, in which case the drawing-off would be of the processed and smoothed out cotton from the rest of the yet-to-be combed mess down there.
I can say I appreciate the aesthetics of the machine, wheels within wheels, steel casings precisely assembled.