To explore the method for pulling cotton whole-stalk and address the problems of high leakage rate and low pull-out rate, a belt clamping cotton-stalk pulling device was designed. The device is mainly composed of a front suspension device, a pulling and conveying device, a hydraulic control system and dividers. The pulling process of the belt clamping cotton-stalk pulling device was analysed, and the key factors affecting the performance of the device were determined. The three-factor, three-level quadratic regression orthogonal experiment was carried out. Then, the verification test was carried out with the optimized parameters. The results showed that when the pulling height was 61.4 mm, the forward speed was 2.2 km/h, and the driving wheel speed was 244.7 r/min, the average cotton stalk breaking rate was 5.42%, and the average cotton stalk leakage rate was 6.33%, the relative error between the experimental verifivation value and the theoretical optimized value was less than 5%. This study enriches the cotton stalk pulling technology and provides a reference for the development of cotton stalk pulling equipment.