the United States, &c. It came to the United States through the Bahama islands from one of the Caribbean isles, and is supposed to have originated in Persia. The fibre is re Shrub Cotton (Gossypium Barbadense). markable for its length, strength, silkiness, and yellowish tinge; the seeds are black. In Santo Domingo the cotton plant, instead of being a simple bush planted from the seed each year, is a tree growing two and three years, which needs only to be trimmed and pruned to produce a large yield of the finest cotton. The cotton plant is indigenous to the tropical regions of both hemispheres; but the range of its cultivation extends north to the southern part of Europe and south to the Cape of Good Hope, and in the western hemisphere from Virginia to southern Brazil. The natural demands of the plant are for a tropical or semitropical climate that affords seven or eight months entirely free from frosts. Cotton was found by Humboldt in the Andes growing at an elevation of 9,000 ft., and in Mexico at 5,500. Royle states that it is cultivated at a height of 4,000 ft. in the Himalaya.-The seasons best adapted to the growth of cotton are a wet and warm spring, allowing the young plants to become well started and firmly set in the soil; a long hot summer, with bright days and dewy nights, and occasional showers to mature the bolls; and a long dry autumn, giving full time for gathering the crop. It has been ascertained that Indian cotton seed brought to the United States (from where it is a native to where it is an exotic) will produce a better cotton than in India, tending to longer and better staple continually. On the contrary, New Orleans seed planted in India will produce cotton the first year nearly equal to its original, but every year of reproduction from the same seed will exhibit more and more deterioration, until the product shall have assimilated to the native Indian cotton. The conditions of the two countries cause the characteristics of cotton to determine in opposite directions; hence the necessity for frequent renewals of good staple seeds in India. An analysis recently made shows that an ordinary crop of cotton removes each year from an acre of soil a little more than 26 lbs. of chemical salts, containing a little more than 9 lbs. of potash, nearly 9 lbs. phosphoric acid, a little more than 1 lb. of sulphuric acid, 3 lbs. of magnesia, and nearly 2 lbs. of lime. From this it appears that the soil must be strengthened by the use of fertilizers rich in phosphates and potash, and having a large amount of sulphuric acid. The use of the fibre of the cotton plant as a material for textile fabrics does not appear to have been known to those nations of antiquity whose skill in the manufacture of fine linen and in the weaving of wool is recorded in the most ancient writings. The cloths in which the mummies of the Egyptians were enveloped exhibit only the round smooth fibre of flax, never the sharp, angular, and spirally twisted fibre peculiar to cotton, a structure which may be recognized in the rags of the stuff made of the material, and is not lost even in the pulp to which these rags are reduced for the purpose of being made into paper. The earliest notice of cotton is by Herodotus, about 450 B. C., who speaks of the trees of India bearing, as their fruit, fleeces more delicate and beautiful than those of sheep, and of the Indians using them for the manufacture of cloth. Aristobulus and Nearchus, generals of Alexander, brought back to Greece correct accounts of the cotton tree and of its product. Theophrastus also described its culture from exact information. From India, cotton cloth was gradually introduced into Greece and Rome, and before the Christian era it was used by Verres in Sicily as a covering for his tents. According to Livy, Lentulus Spinther (63 B. C.) first introduced cotton awnings in the theatre at the Apollinarian games; and Cæsar afterward covered the forum with them, as also the sacred way from his own house to the Capitoline hill, which appeared more wonderful than the gladiatorial exhibition itself. The cotton fabrics of the Hindoos have been excelled in fineness and excellence only by the productions of the most perfect machines of modern times. By them were made the fine muslins known to the ancient Greeks by the name of Tayy koí, which referred to their coming from the borders of the Ganges. These were both plain and ornamental, and some were white and some beautifully dyed. The city of Calicut on the western coast, which with Surat was an ancient cotton mart for the supply of the more western nations of Asia, gave its name to the variety of the fabric known as calico. As described by Tavernier, some qualities of this were "so fine that you could hardly feel them in your hand, and the thread when spun is scarcely discernible." He also speaks of the cloth making transparent garments, and of turbans containing 25 or 30 ells of it weighing less than 4 oz. A single pound of thread was spun out to the length of 115 miles; but it has since been made in England so fine that a pound could be made to reach 1,026 miles. The famous muslins of Dacca, made of a staple too short to be spun by Europeans or woven by any machinery, and designated as "webs of woven wind," are produced from cotton grown only in a district of about 40 m. in length by 3 in breadth, lying to the northeast of Calcutta. There are accounts of muslins made in Bengal so fine that a piece requires four months to make it, and is worth 500 rupees; when laid upon the grass and covered with dew, it is not discernible.Spain was the first of European countries to adopt the cotton culture; it was introduced there as early as the 10th century by the Moors, and was about the same time extended to Sicily. The Venetians engaged in it about the 14th century; and the Turks about the same period introduced it into Roumelia and Macedonia. The earliest notice of cotton as an article of English trade is about the end of the 15th century. In the early part of the 18th century the English received it from the East and West Indies. In 1700 about 1,000,000 lbs. were consumed in Great Britain. The consumption increased to 2,200,000 lbs. in 1720, and 3,900,000 in 1764. After 1786 the increase in the consumption, in consequence of Arkwright's invention, was most extraordinary. In 1800 the amount consumed was about 51,000,000 lbs., which rose to 150,000,000 lbs. in 1820, 588,200,000 in 1850, and 1,101,191,280 in 1870.-In the new world, the manufacture of cotton cloth appears to have been well understood by the Mexicans and Peruvians long before the discovery of their countries by Europeans. Columbus found the cotton plant growing wild in Hispaniola, and later explorers recognized it as far north as the country bordering the Mishe-sepe, or Mississippi, and its tributaries. Cortes, on setting out from Trinidad on the southern coast of Cuba for his Mexican expedition, gathered it in abundance to quilt the jackets of his soldiers as a protection, after the practice of the natives, against the Indian arrows; and when on the Mexican coast, among the rich presents received by him from Montezuma were 66 curtains, coverlets, and robes of cotton, fine as silk, of rich and various dyes, interwoven with feather work, that rivalled the delicacy of painting." The Mexicans also fabricated white cotton cloths for numerous uses, and even converted the material into a sort of paper. The West India islands furnished to Great Britain about the close of the last century some 40,000 bales, or three fourths of the supply of cotton at that time. The quality was the long staple. Cotton was exported from Brazil as early as 1760, but it was not till about 1825 that Brazilian cotton began to be extensively used in England. In the United States, cotton seeds, as stated in Purchas's "Pilgrims," were first "planted as an experiment in 1621, and their plentiful coming up was, at that early day, a subject of interest in America and England." In the province of Carolina the growth of the cotton plant is noticed in a paper of the date of 1666 preserved in Carroll's "Historical Collections of South Carolina." In 1736 the plant was known in gardens in lat. 39° N., on the eastern shore of Maryland; and about 40 years afterward it was cultivated in the county of Cape May in New Jersey. It was, however, little known except as a garden plant until after the revolutionary war, at the commencement of which Gen. Delagall is said to have had 30 acres of the green-seed cotton under culture near Savannah. In 1748 it is stated that among the exports of Charleston, S. C., were seven bags of cotton wool, valued at £3 118. 5d. a bag. Another small shipment was made in 1754; and in 1770 three more, amounting to 10 bales, were made to Liverpool. In 1784 eight bags shipped to England were seized, on the ground that so much cotton could not be produced in the United States. The exports of the next six years were successively 14, 6, 109, 389, 842, and (in 1790) 81 bags. In 1786 the first sea island cotton was raised on the coast of Georgia, and its exportation was commenced in 1788 by Alexander Bissel, of St. Simon's island. The seeds were obtained from the Bahamas, the plant having been introduced there from Anguilla, one of the Leeward isles. The first successful crop in. the state was that of William Elliott in 1790, on Hilton Head island. The excellent quality of the staple caused it to be distinguished from other cottons in the year 1805, and enabled it to command much higher prices. In 1806 it sold for 30 cts. per lb., when other cotton was worth 22 cts. In 1816 it brought 47 cts., other cotton 27 cts. The great length of the fibre was unequalled, and the English manufacturers at first actually reduced it by cutting before spinning. The success of the crop caused many to engage in its cultivation, and some of the largest fortunes in South Carolina were thus rapidly accumulated. The extent of the region adapted to it was, however, limited, and the amount raised in 1805 was not exceeded by the crop of 1832, being about 8,000,000 lbs. The culture of the other varieties, the herbaceous and the hirsutum or shrub cotton, distinguished by their green instead of the black seed of the sea island, was rapidly extended in the last 10 years of the 18th century throughout the southern states, the product being known as the short staple or upland cotton. In 1791 the cotton crop in the United States was 2,000,000 lbs., of which three fourths was raised in South Carolina and one fourth in Georgia. The exports amounted to 189,500 lbs. In 1801, 48,000,000 lbs. were produced, and 20,000,000 lbs. exported.-Besides the United States, the chief countries for the production of cotton are the East Indies, Egypt, Brazil, the West Indies, and Guiana. India contributes a supply of cotton next in finer fabrics. The principal cotton-producing importance to that of the United States. The district of Africa is Egypt, where its culture earliest recorded importation of raw cotton was introduced in 1821. A small quantity is from India to England was in 1783, when the consumed in the country; but the greater poramount imported was 114,133 lbs. Formerly | tion is exported, chiefly to Europe. The conthe exports were principally from the districts sumption of Egyptian cotton in Europe has within 40 m. of the coast; but the recent con- averaged about 300,000 bales annually for ten struction of railroads renders practicable the years. The best Egyptian cotton ranks next exportation of cotton raised in the interior. to the sea island in quality and length of staple, Although great pains have been taken to im- though it is not usually so well cleaned. The prove the culture, and seed from other coun- extended culture of cotton in Brazil, which tries and methods in use in the United States was begun early in the present century, has have been introduced at great expense, the pro- increased so rapidly that for many years that duct has not been made to equal in quality the country ranked next to the United States in long staple obtained in America, and, from the amount produced. In many places on the some peculiarity common to all of it under coast the climate was found adapted to the whatever condition it is raised, is never likely growth of the long-staple cotton; but the most to be substituted to a great extent for Ameri- extensive plantations are now in the interior. can cotton. The extent of the Indian cotton The principal cotton-growing province is Percrop can only be reached by estimates, as the nambuco. The European consumption of Braexports to Europe form a small proportion of zilian cotton has increased from 122,000 bales the whole production. The home consumption in 1862 to 866,000 in 1872. In 1873 it amountis enormous, cotton being extensively used in- ed to 653,000. In the British West Indies stead of wool, linen, &c., for nearly every arti- and Guiana, and in Turkey and other countries cle of clothing, and even for woven or padded bordering on the Mediterranean, the production furniture. The exports to China are large. In of cotton is attended with profit. Australia, 1858 Dr. Forbes Watson estimated the whole the South Pacific islands, South Africa, and the production at 2,432,395,875 lbs., equal to west coast of South America have produced 6,500,000 bales of 375 lbs. each. The amount fine specimens of long-stapled (black-seed) cotconsumed in India was placed at 5,760,000, and ton, vying in spinning value with the best stathat exported at 740,000 bales. After much ples from Egypt, Surinam, Pernambuco, &c.; discussion these estimates were accepted with while eastern Europe and western Asia have general favor. It has since been estimated that produced good specimens of green-seed cotton not less than 24,000,000 acres are devoted to from New Orleans seed. But these countries its culture, and that the annual production will not rank high in cotton production, beamounts to nearly 3,000,000,000 lbs. For the cause other staples can be cultivated with four years ending with 1872, the average an- greater profit.-The United States exceed all nual imports of Indian cotton into Europe other countries in the production of cotton, amounted to 1,650,000 bales, or 594,000,000 both as to quantity and quality. This is atlbs. In 1872 the quantity reached 2,098,000 tributed not so much to soil as to climate. The bales. Though the Chinese consume immense plant is found growing as far north as 40°; quantities of cotton, its use and cultivation do but the belt within which its cultivation is atnot appear to have been known to them pre- tended with profit lies between the gulf of vious to the 11th century, and their own crop Mexico and the parallel of 36°, and the best still falls far short of supplying their wants. cotton region extends about 100 m. on either The best known of their fabrics are the nan- side of the parallel of 32°. Although it may keens, named from the city of Nankin. Cey- be profitably cultivated in some of the Tenneslon, Borneo, and other islands of the Indian see valleys, in some bottom lands of northern archipelago, have long produced cotton, and Arkansas and southern Missouri, and a limited are susceptible of a largely increased culture area in North Carolina, the cotton states, propof it. Japan produces it, but the fibre is found erly speaking, are South Carolina, Georgia, to be too coarse for the manufacture of fine the northern part of Florida, Alabama, Missisfabrics. A portion of Australia is well adapted sippi, the northern half of Louisiana, the southfor the growth of the plant; but no country ern half of Arkansas, and the eastern half of either of the old or new world is probably to Texas. The yield of cotton per acre varies be compared with Africa for the adaptation of greatly, corresponding with the condition_of its soil and climate to this cultivation. In the the soil; it ranges in amount from 130 lbs. central portions of the continent the product on the uplands to 400 lbs. on the rich lowhas been employed from remote periods; and lands. The productive capacity of the soil it has long been known upon the coast of is greatly increased by the use of fertilizers. Guinea, in Abyssinia, and upon the banks of The average for the total crop of the United the Senegal, Gambia, Niger, &c. Cotton is States in 1872 was one half bale per acre. also produced along the coast of eastern Afri- There are two leading varieties of cotton ca, and in the vicinity of the Cape of Good cultivated in the United States, the upland Hope; but much of the African cotton is too from green and the sea island from black coarse and short for the manufacture of the seed. The upland, known also as the short staple, is of Mexican or West Indian origin, and has received the designation upland to distinguish it from the produce of the islands and low districts near the shore. It constitutes the great bulk of the crop in the United States. Thus in 1873, when the total production of cotton amounted to 3,930,508 bales, the crop of sea island was 26,289 bales. The sea island (G. arboreum or tree cotton) is the finest and best kind of cotton produced anywhere, and commands the highest price. It will not flourish at a distance from the sea, and its cultivation is limited to districts along the shores of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. The most favorable point for its production, in respect both to soil and climate, is Edisto island, on the coast of South Carolina, south of Charleston. The soil is light and sandy, but a little above tide, and its fertility is increased by the use, as manure, of mud from the surrounding salt marshes. The average yield per acre is little more than half of that of the upland. The staple or filament of sea island cotton is long, silken, and delicate, which renders it highly valuable in the production of the finest yarns. It is never introduced into the coarser muslins, but is used for the most delicate fabrics, and very largely in the manufacture of the finest quality of cotton thread; and it is also consumed in large quantities by silk manufacturers, the fine, soft, and glossy fibre rendering a mixture with the thread of the silkworm difficult to be detected.-The cotton plant is cultivated in the southern states from the seed, which is sown generally in March and April, in rows commonly 4 to 5 ft. apart, and in drills 18 inches apart. Machines have been invented and used for planting the seeds, but not with full success; accordingly the planting is generally done by hand. The soil is preferred light, even if sandy, and is kept well weeded by occasional hoeing or running a light plough or scraper between the rows. Sea island cotton is generally planted between March 20 and April 10, upon high beds, 5 ft. apart one way, and from 8 to 24 inches the other, according to the richness of the soil. In ten days or a fortnight after planting, rows of tiny leaflets appear bursting out of the moist earth, and early in June the plant begins to bloom. It is said that no crop in the United States presents an appearance so beautiful as growing cotton, especially at the gathering season, when the globes of snowy wool are seen among the glossy dark green leaves; and the beauty of the plantation is still greater in the hotter countries, where the yellow blossom or flower and the ripened bolls are seen at the same time. In June the cotton fields present the appearance of vast flower gardens. The blossom resembles that of the hollyhock, and has the peculiarity of changing color from day to day. A flower, opening in the morning of a pale straw color, by noon will be pure white, in the afternoon faint pink, and the next morning clear pink. The blossom of the sea island, however, is always pale yellow. The height of the plant varies, according to soil and climate, from 2 to 6 ft. As the flowers fall off, the "forms or young bolls begin to grow rapidly. At first they are somewhat angular in shape, but afterward assume a nearly spherical form. The cotton plant is often injured, and sometimes destroyed, by small animals or insects which attack the plant when very young. (See COTTON WORM.) Early in August the picking season begins, and continues until November, and sometimes even until the latter part of December, as the plant continues to produce and ripen its bolls of cotton until the appearance of frost. The height of the picking season is in October. The picking is by hand. Lines of pickers, generally negroes, male and female, with wide-mouthed sacks suspended from their shoulders or waists, pass between the rows of plants, and gather the fleecy cotton from the open pods, which is carried in sacks and deposited in baskets at the ends of the rows. Each person will pick an average of from 200 to 300 lbs. per day. Successive pickings are made as the bolls ripen. The cotton is brought from the field in wagons to the gin house, generally a plain wooden structure two stories high. If damp it is dried in the sun. The next step is the process of ginning, or the separation of the fibre from the seed. This process was at first performed by hand, which was a very tedious operation owing to the tenacity with which the cotton clings to the seed; but since the great invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, in 1793, it has been done by that machine with the most beneficial results. So great was the effect of this invention upon the cultivation and manufacture of cotton, that its production and consumption increased with marvellous rapidity. The principle and mechanism of the cotton gin are both simple. The main features consist of Exterior View of the Gin. a cylinder, generally about 4 ft. long and 5 in. in diameter, upon which is set a series of circular saws, about half an inch apart, and projecting about two inches above the surface of the revolving cylinder. A mass of cotton in the seed, separated from the cylinder by steel bars or grating, is brought into contact with the numerous teeth on the cylinder. These teeth catch the cotton while playing between the bars, which allow the lint but not the seed to pass. Underneath the saws is a set of stiff brushes on another cylinder revolving in the opposite direction, which brush off from the saw teeth the lint which they have just pulled from the seed. The remaining feature is a revolving fan for producing a current of air to throw the light and downy lint thus liberated to a convenient distance from the revolving saws and brushes. These are the essential principles of the cotton gin as invented by Whitney, and as still used; but in various details and workmanship, it has been the subject of many improvements, the object nary gin, however, cannot be successfully used in separating the lint of sea island cotton from the seed. The machinery generally used for this purpose consists of two fluted rollers, commonly made of wood, but sometimes of vulcanized rubber or steel, about in. in diameter and from 9 to 16 in. long, placed parallel in a frame which keeps them almost in contact. These rollers, revolving in opposite directions, draw the cotton between them, while the seeds are prevented from passing by the want of sufficient space. This machine is worked by the foot of the operator acting upon a treadle, while the cotton is fed between the rollers by hand. From 30 to 40 lbs. a day can be cleaned by one of these machines, while the average daily capacity of an ordinary Whitney gin is about 3,200 lbs. Horse power is commonly used in ginning cotton; but on large plantations steam is used. The next process is that of packing the cotton into bales. This is |