Cotton is the name given to the soft cellular hairs which encircle the seeds of plants of the genus Gossypium, natural order Malvaceae. The genus is indigenous to both the Old and the New World, and the plants are now cultivated all over the world within the limits of thirty degrees north and south of the equator. All the species are perennial shrubs, though in cultivation they are sometimes treated as if they were annuals. They have alternate stalked and lobed leaves, large yellow flowers, and a three or five celled capsule, which bursts open when ripe through the middle of the cell, liberating the numerous black seeds covered with the beautiful filamentous cotton.
The North American cotton is produced by Gossypium bartadense, and two well-marked varieties are cultivated, the long-staple cotton, which has a fine soft silky fibre, about five centimetres long, and the short-staple cotton, which has a fibre little over three centimetres long adhering closely to the seed. The long-staple variety known as Sea Island cotton holds the first place in the market. It is grown in some of the southern states of America, especially on islands bordering the coast.
The cotton grown in South America is obtained from Gossypium peruvianum, called also kidney cotton. The indigenous Indian species is Gossypium herbaceum, which yields a short-stapled cotton. It is grown throughout the Mediterranean region as well as in Asia.
The mode of cultivation is traditionally as follows: The seeds are sown in the spring in drills of about a metre in width, the plant appearing above ground in about eight days afterwards. The rows of young plants are then carefully weeded and hoed, a process which requires to be repeated at two or three subsequent periods. No hoeing takes place after the flowering has commenced, from which a period of seventy days generally elapses until the ripening of the seed. To prevent the lustre of the cotton wool from being tarnished, the pods must not remain ungathered longer than eight days after coming to maturity. The cotton wool is collected by picking with the fingers the flakes from the pods, and then spreading out to dry, an operation which requires to be thoroughly performed. The cotton now comes to be separated from the seeds, a process formerly effected by manual labour, but which since the late 19th century is generally accomplished by machinery. After being cleansed from the seeds, the cotton wool is formed into bales, and is now ready for delivery to the manufacturer.
Cotton has been cultivated in India and the adjacent islands from time immemorial. It was known in Egypt in the 6th century before the Christian era, but was then probably imported from India. It was not until a comparatively late period that the nations of the West became acquainted with this useful commodity, and even then it appears only to have been used as an article of the greatest luxury. The introduction of the cotton-shrub into Europe dates from the 9th century, and was first effected by the Spanish Moors, who planted it in the plains of Valencia. Cotton manufactories were shortly afterwards established at Cordova, Granada, and Seville; and by the 14th century the cotton stuffs manufactured in Granada had come to be regarded as superior in quality to those of Syria. About the 14th century cotton thread began to be imported into England.
In China the cotton-shrub was known at a very early period, but cotton does not appear to have been turned to any account as an article of manufacture until the 6th century of the Christian era, nor was it extensively used for that purpose until nearly the middle of the 14th century. In the New World the manufacture of cotton cloth appears to have been well understood by the Mexicans and Peruvians long before the advent of Europeans. It was planted by the English colonists of Virginia in 1621, but only as an experiment, and the amount produced was long very small. About 1780-1790 the British West Indies supplied Britain with most of its raw cotton, other sources being Asia Minor and the Levant, Brazil, and the East Indies. The United States then began to export cotton in large quantities, and soon outdistanced all other countries, though much cotton is also exported from India and Egypt. Research Cotton
Abbreviations
Nature
Research Cotton