As the mandiò is very serviceable in feeding the Americans, the mandiyù
does much towards clothing them. It is produced by shrubs scarce larger
than a hazel of our country, with wood and bark like the elder, and
clothed with plenty of soft, woolly leaves. Between three small leaves,
with which the unripe nuts are surrounded, grow flowers larger than
roses, composed of five broad yellow petals, streaked with red: yellow
stamens grow in the bottom of the flowers. The blossoms at length become
fruit of a green colour, oval-shaped, or rather conical, and when full
grown larger than a plum. When ripe it turns black, and separates into
three parts, thrusting out white cotton, full of black seeds, resembling
pistachio nuts in size and shape. Under the black skin of these seeds is
concealed a yellowish white pith, of a sweet taste, very oily, and of
much use in allaying cough and difficulty of respiration. The oil
expressed from them is said to be efficacious in cases of stone and in
cutaneous disorders. Cotton itself, when burnt, will stop the flowing of
blood. As the cotton gradually ripens and bursts from its prison, it is
not gathered all at once, but collected day by day. In the Guarany towns
this is the business of the girls, who walk about the field, and pluck
the fruit with a gentle hand, that the shrubs may not be injured. The
cotton daily collected is spread on hides in the court-yard of the
house, and laid out in the sun to dry. If this be properly attended to,
it may either be safely kept for years in a leathern bag, or spun into
thread as soon as you like. To extract those seeds from the cotton the
women make use of a wooden machine, consisting of a couple of cylinders,
the thickness of two fingers, into which they insert the cotton, and,
twisting it about with their hands, cause the seeds to fall out of
themselves; because, as they are thicker than the space between the
cylinders, they are squeezed out by them.
Some parts of Paraguay produce yellow cotton, but this is very uncommon;
for in every other place throughout the country the cotton is as white
as snow, and grows on shrubs which are reared from seed sown in little
plots of ground, and yield fruit many years. If any plant withers, or
grows old, fresh seed is sown, and another succeeds which bears fruit
the first year. Cotton loves a sunny elevated situation, exposed to the
winds on every side, and full of stones. However favourable the soil may
naturally be to the production of cotton, it always requires exquisite
culture. It must be ploughed, and weeded over and over again, to clear
it of thistles, tares, and grass. The furrows and ditches, into each of
which three or four fresh cotton seeds are placed, must be dug in a
right line, and at such a distance from one another that the oxen and
ploughmen may have room to pass through the intermediate spaces. The
same field, indeed, must be fresh ploughed every year, and, at the
approach of spring, the plants, which have been stripped of their leaves
in the winter, are cut like vines, and quickly covered with new foliage.
The poorer sort amongst the Spaniards of Paraguay wear cotton shirts;
the richer, linen ones. They prefer paying an inordinate price for linen
webs brought from Europe to the trouble of cultivating flax.