Where Does Cotton Come From?
We get cotton from a plant which grows best in the warm climate of our
Southern States. Cotton has been known to the people of the world for
a long time. Before the birth of Christ people knew about cotton. They
thought it was wool which grew on a tree instead of a sheep’s back.
No other plant is of such value to man as cotton. We should learn
something about a plant that is used by man in so many ways as cotton.
The cotton plant of our Southern States is a small shrub-like annual
about four feet high. The flowers of the cotton plant are white at
first but change to cream color and then are tinged with red. This
change takes place over a period of four days when the petals drop off
and leave what is called a “boll” in the calyx of the flower. This
boll, which is to contain the cotton, is really the seed container of
the cotton plant and keeps on growing larger until it is about as big
as a hen’s egg. When it is fully grown or ripe the boll cracks and the
seeds and fibrous lint burst forth. The bolls are then gathered and
taken to a cotton gin, where the seeds are separated from the lint and
the lint prepared for weaving.
The boll is divided into from three to five sections. Each section
contains a quantity of lint and seeds. When the boll is fully grown
the covering of each of the sections cracks and opens up, revealing
the contents. It is just like opening the door of each section and
having the contents burst out. When these bolls burst open, there is no
more beautiful sight in the world than to look out over a cotton field
and see the colored people--the “cotton pickers”--busy at their work
picking off the bolls.
When the crop is gathered and ginned, the lint is packed into bales and
taken to the cotton mill, where it is made into cloth. One of the most
interesting industrial processes in the world is to see the bale of
cotton go into a cotton mill and come out a piece of cotton goods.
[Illustration: THE COTTON ARRIVES AT THE MILL