Cotton
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Cotton. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the fibre which surrounds the seed of several species of the cotton plant. Cotton grows on a bushy herb two or three feet high. It is contained in a three-to five-celled pod which bursts open when ripe. The open pod is called a boll. The cotton fiber is intended by nature to enable the wind to carry and scatter the seeds as it does those of the milkweed, cottonwood, and dandelion; but man has discovered that the soft fiber may be twisted into thread, and the thread woven into cloth. Cotton is the great cloth plant of the world. The crowded population of Japan, China, India, Egypt, and the inhabitants of all warm countries-half to four-fifths of the human race-wear cotton clothes the year round. The peasants of the countries named never wear anything else. The use of clothing, and particularly of cotton clothing, is increasing rapidly. There is little danger, therefore, of raising too much cotton. If the entire world were civilized and able to dress properly, the cotton looms would require 42,000,000 bales a year. Cotton cloth appears to have been made and worn before the dawn of history in three centers,--India, Northern Africa, and Central America . Columbus found Indians wearing cotton cloth, and Cortez found the Mexican Indians proficient in weaving a native cloth. Europe got its first cotton cloth from India, by way of the caravan trade. Calico is the Calicut cloth of India; muslin, the Moosoul cloth of Mesopotamia; cambric is the cloth of Cambrai, a town in France where it was first made from cotton brought from India. Europe appears to have taken an interest in cotton weaving shortly after the discovery of America. At first people, accustomed to linen and woolen goods, thought cotton good enough for a royal wedding dress. Cotton was known in our southern colonies from the earliest times, but merely as a dooryard plant-an ornamental flowering herb. In 1739 a bag of cotton was sent to England from Savannah. In 1784, at the close of the Revolutionary War, eight bags of American cotton were seized at Liverpool on a suspicion that the colonies could not have produced so much. About this date cotton growing began in the United States in earnest, and ten years later Charleston had 1,000,000 pounds to sell. The industry went on slowly at first, because the cotton had to be pulled from the seed by hand. In 1793 an inventive Massachusetts Yankee, by the name of Eli Whitney, resident in Georgia, devised a cotton gin. It consists of a hopper into which the bolls are poured. One side of the hopper is composed of parallel wires, between which circular saws, fixed on a swiftly revolving roller, turn with rapidity and whip the fiber through the slits, while the seeds, too large to follow, rattle down to the bottom of the hopper and out into a pile by themselves. This device, which, by the way, brought Mr. Whitney no end of lawsuits and little profit, enabled planters to prepare large quantities of cotton for market. In 1791 we sold England 189,000 pounds; in 1803 we sold her 41,000,000 pounds; in 1810 our exports were 94,000,000 pounds; in 1820 we sold 128,000,000 pounds; in 1830 we had 271,000,000 pounds to spare, and so on up to 1860, when the American production of cotton had reached the astonishing figure of 1,462,500,000 pounds or 4,685,000 bales of 300 pounds each. The cotton crop began to bring in so much money that Senator Hammond declared on the floor of the Senate, 1858, "Cotton is king." In 1790 the first successful American cotton mill-a factory for spinning and weaving cotton-was established in Pawtucket, Rhode Island . English invention (see articles on HARGREAVES and ARKWRIGHT) had built up a great cotton-weaving industry in that country. America had but to import English machinery and begin work. Four years later a second mill was erected. By 1810 there were 102 mills and 31,000 spindles; twenty years later, there were 795 mills with 1,250,000 spindles, or 33,000 looms. When the Civil War came we had 1,000 mills, employing 100,000 people, and consuming 420,000,000 pounds of cotton a year. The fertility of the soil, cheap slave labor, and the use of the cotton gin, enabled America to raise most of the cotton needed in the world's markets. Our Atlantic States, from Virginia southward, all the Gulf States, and Tennessee, engaged in raising cotton. During the Civil War it was difficult for Northern mills to get cotton. Prices rose till calico sold for twenty-five cents per yard. On account of the blockade, or guarding of the Southern ports by Federal ships, England could scarcely get shipments at all; and the so-called Cotton Famine in Great Britain followed. Other countries were not prepared to raise large amounts, and many English mills were obliged to close, throwing thousands and thousands of people out of work and causing great financial disasters. The high price of cotton, in time, stimulated greater production, particularly in Egypt and India. When the Civil War was over the cotton plantations of the South, with buildings burned, negroes gone, and foreign markets occupied by new growers, were simply ruined. Of late the natural superiority of American cotton, the establishment of cotton mills near the cotton fields, and a system of cultivation by small renters rather than on the now impossible large plantations, have given American cotton and American cloth a new ascendancy. The United States now produces more cotton than ever. Our Southern states grow 10,000,000 bales a year, or eighty per cent of the world's cotton. The American cotton crop for 1905 was valued at $575,000,000. Europe now pays the United States $1,000,000 a day for cotton. Cotton culture is not unlike that of corn or potatoes. Fields are plowed and fertilized and the seed is dropped in hills. Warm, steamy weather helps the young crop on rapidly. The planting begins frequently in February. It continues for about two months. During May and June the plants are cultivated. This work is done with a big, long-handled hoe, and is called "chopping cotton." The weeds are "chopped" out, and the rows thinned by cutting out the poorer plants. Then, for two months or more, there is no work in the cotton fields. In many cotton-growing regions in the South, this is the one time in the year when the children can be spared to attend school. Cotton raising need not impoverish the soil. The cotton fiber itself draws its elements from air and water. In selling a bale of cotton, a planter sells no part of his soil. If the stalks be returned to the soil and the cotton seed be fed to stock, a cotton farm should not run down. During the latter part of September cotton picking begins. The bolls open gradually, and, as the cotton is picked from the open bolls only, the picking lasts a long time. The first light frosts hasten the opening of the bolls, and the bulk of the cotton is picked usually in October and November. The cotton is seldom all picked by Christmas time, and fields are seen as late as March still white with cotton. Usually a thrifty cotton grower gets his cotton picked before time to plant the next crop; but there is sufficient reason for the expression, "It takes thirteen months to raise a cotton crop." A good field hand can pick 200 pounds a day. A cotton picking machine has been introduced. It runs astride of a row. Two cylinders catch the cotton. In place of the grain elevators seen farther north, the railroad stations of the cotton-growing states are provided with cotton gins and cotton-baling machines. After ginning, cotton is compressed by machinery and bound by strap iron into bales weighing about 500 pounds. It is then ready for market. The cotton gin turns out about two-thirds seed and one-third fiber by weight. A bale of cotton and half a ton of cottonseed may be regarded as a fair yield per acre. The seed, not unlike green coffee in appearance, was formerly thrown away as waste, but is now put through a heavy press. It yields a large amount of cotton-seed oil, and a refuse known as oil cake. Oil cake is fed to stock. Cottonseed oil is used for a great variety of purposes. It is the oil out of which cottolene, a substitute for lard, is made. About 4,500,000 tons of seed, formerly left to rot behind the gins, is now utilized. Cotton fiber is ordinarily from one-half to two-thirds of an inch in length. A fiber is merely a hollow, flat, cellulose tube, with a spiral twist. An especially fine, soft cotton, called Sea Island cotton is produced on the islands off the coast of Georgia. The boll is small; the seeds are black. It has a fiber two inches long. This cotton cannot so far be made to grow with entire success on the mainland, or in other parts of the world. It commands a high price. It is said that a thousand mile thread has been spun from it so fine that it weighed but a pound. Cotton raising is not without its difficulties. Insect pests are hard to overcome. There are three serious insect pests, the cotton-stainer, the cotton-worm, and the cotton boll-weevil . The cotton-stainer is the least annoying. It is a species of insect in some degree like a chinch-bug, but longer. The body of the adult is red, with pale brown wing covers, marked with yellowish stripes. The young have black legs and red bodies. They feed by sucking the juice of the stems and buds of the cotton plant, and are especially dreaded because they stain the cotton in the opening bolls. They are also accused of puncturing the rinds of oranges so that the fruit soon decays. The cotton-worm is the caterpillar of a small, night-flying moth. The moth lives over winter in the shelter of old grass. It lays its eggs in early springtime on the cotton plant when it is only an inch or two high. The caterpillars are hairy, green fellows, with black dots. They travel with a looping gait, like the cutworm and the measuring worm. The first generation hatches out in March. As soon as the caterpillar has matured and turned into a moth, the second generation travels northward and lays eggs. The Texas cotton worm moth is thought in this way to give rise to seven successive generations in the same growing season. The caterpillars strip the plants of their leaves and render a crop out of the question. The cotton boll-weevil is a small, gray-reddish-brown, snout beetle about a quarter of an inch in length. It has a long, strong beak. It feeds on the cotton plant and nothing else. The adult female punctures the young cotton boll and deposits an egg. The egg hatches into a grub, which works inside the boll until it is ready to come out. It leaves a hole behind it through which moisture enters and utterly ruins the cotton. The cotton bollweevil entered Texas from Mexico. It has been traveling northeastward at the rate of about seventy miles a year. The state of Texas offers a standing reward of $50,000 for a practical solution of the problem presented by this pest. STATISTICS. The American cotton crop for 1908 was reported by the Census Bureau at 13,563,942 bales of 500 pounds each. The crop by states in running bales was as follows: Bales. Alabama 1,358,339 Arkansas 1,018,708 Florida 71,411 Georgia 2,023,828 Kansas, Kentucky, New Mexico 5,054 Louisiana 481,434 Mississippi 1,665,696 Missouri 60,609 North Carolina 699,507 Oklahoma 703,882 South Carolina 1,239,260 Tennessee 348,582 Texas 3,719,189 Virginia 13,103 The following statistics are taken from Bulletin 97, Bureau of the Census, Supply and Distribution of Cotton, for the year ending August 31, 1908. The ruling weight of a bale is 500 pounds. CONSUMPTION 1908. United States: Spindles. Bales. Cotton growing states . . . . . 10,200,903 2,120,581 All other states . . . . . 17,304,519 2,372,447 Europe: United Kingdom . . . . . 52,817,582 3,842,000 Germany . . . . . 9,882,505 1,793,000 Russia . . . . . 7,855,210 1,494,000 France . . . . . 6,731,316 950,000 Italy . . . . . 4,181,000 1,027,000 Austria-Hungary . . . . . 4,026,460 740,000 Spain . . . . . 1,850,000 343,000 Switzerland . . . . . 1,493,012 95,000 Belgium . . . . . 1,162,041 212,300 Portugal . . . . . 450,000 81,000 Netherlands . . . . . 396,160 77,326 Sweden . . . . . 390,000 89,000 Denmark . . . . . 77,644 20,794 Noway . . . . . 74,936 11,255 All other Europe . . . . . 185,000 80,000 British India . . . . . 5,699,898 1,548,638 Japan . . . . . 1,550,929 878,178 China . . . . . 750,000 375,000 Brazil . . . . . 1,300,000 375,000 Mexico . . . . . 730,000 175,000 Canada . . . . . 795,293 115,000 Other countries . . . . . 150,000 40,000 Total . . . . . 130,054,408 18,855,519 The corresponding totals for the year 1900 were: Spindles 105,661,232 Bales 15,185,165 The leading states in the spinning of cotton in 1908 are: Spindles. Bales. Massachusetts . . . . . 9,415,000 1,155,000 North Carolina . . . . . 2,861,000 609,000 South Carolina . . . . . 3,617,000 591,000 Georgia . . . . . 1,757,000 458,000 New Hampshire . . . . . 1,318,000 247,000 Rhode Island . . . . . 2,279,000 218,000 Alabama . . . . . 934,000 202,000 New York . . . . . 910,000 172,000 Maine . . . . . 978,000 153,000 SUPPLY. The nearly 19,000,000 bales consumed by the cotton mills of the world were supplied by the following countries: Per cent. United States 65.9 British India 14.8 Egypt 7.8 Russia 3.8 China 2.6 Brazil 2.2 All other countries 2.9 American cotton is exported from almost every station from which railways leave for Canada. Thus Minnesota and North Dakota appear in the list of cotton exporting states. The chief ports of cotton export in 1908 were: Bales. Galveston, Tex 2,301,000 New Orleans, La 1,870,000 Savannah, Ga 892,000 New York, N. Y 619,000 Wilmington, N. C 492,000 Mobile, Ala 259,000 Brunswick, Ga 176,000 Pensacola, Fla 173,000 Boston and Charlestown, Mass 156,000 Baltimore, Md 117,000 Sabine, Tex 108,000 Puget Sound, Wash 101,000 The countries to which cotton is sent, and the number of bales exported to each in 1907 are as follows: Bales. United Kingdom 2,956,000 Germany 2,385,000 France 889,000 Italy 418,000 Spain 262,000 Belgium 119,000 Russia 98,000 Austria-Hungary 90,000 Sweden and Norway 35,000 Netherlands 27,000 Denmark 4,538 All other European countries 22,000 Japan 200,000 Canada 113,000 Mexico 4,000 All other countries 4,000 Total 7,633,000 AMERICAN COTTON IMPORTATION, 1908. Cotton fabrics $13,460,000 Cotton yarns and threads 3,921,000 Threads, crochet and embroidery cottons 4,169,000 Knit goods 9,032,000 Lace curtains, laces and embroideries, edgings, etc 33,611,000 Clothing ready made, not included in knitted goods 4,185,000 Total $68,379,000 To the above must be added an importation (1908) of 69,000,000 pounds of Egyptian cotton. The Bulletin says: There are four principal reasons for the extensive use of Egyptian cottons in the United States: (1) They are best adapted to mercerizing and other processes that give a high finish to cloth and cause it to resemble silk; (2) their exceptional clearness (freedom from map) and luster, as well as their capacity for taking dyes, fit them for mixing with silk and for filling sateen, India linens, and similar goods having a brilliant surface; (3) the brown color of Mit Afifi fiber allows it to be used without dyeing in manufacturing goods, such as Balbriggan underwear and lace curtains, in which the ecru shade is desired; (4) they can be used for the manufacture of sewing thread and other articles which need to be very strong and for which no other type of cotton but sea-island is suitable. Owing to the higher price of the latter, Egyptian cottons can in many cases be advantageously substituted. Except in cases where the brown-colored fiber is especially desired there seems to be little reason for preferring Egyptian to sea-island cotton, although one manufacturer reports that, within the range of the numbers used, the former furnishes a cleaner and better looking filling than either sea-island or peeler (long-staple upland) cottons. The highest grades of sea-island have longer and finer fiber than any other cotton, and therefore make stronger and finer yarns and thread. For these grades the Egyptian can not be substituted, but in manufacturing various classes of goods the somewhat lower price of Egyptian cottons allows them to be used to advantage in place of the lower grades of sea-island, especially when the supply of the latter is below the normal. Apart from specific qualities of the fiber, American manufacturers give other reasons for preferring Egyptian cotton. They state that it is usually more carefully ginned, graded, and baled, and is apt to be freer from trash and short fiber, hence giving less waste in carding and combing than either sea-island or long-staple upland cottons. Egyptian cotton is also esteemed for its evenness of staple, the different grades showing little variation in this respect from year to year. Egyptian cotton culture in the United States.--The Egyptian varieties are apparently best adapted to culture under irrigation in regions where there is practically no rainfall during the growing season. The only part of the United States where these conditions exist and where at the same time the summers are long and hot enough for profitable cotton culture is the extreme Southwest, from western Texas to southern California. Since this type of cotton will continue to produce bolls and ripen fiber until a hard frost occurs, it is obvious that the largest yields can be obtained in regions where the autumn temperatures are highest. We must therefore conclude that the greatest success with Egyptian cotton is to be expected in southern Arizona and southeastern California--a conclusion that is supported by the experience so far gained. The valleys of the Salt River and of the Colorado River (Yuma Valley) in Arizona and the Imperial Valley in California have been found to be admirably adapted to the production of this type of cotton. See Agriculture ; Wool ; Silk ; Flax ; Hemp ; Ramie ; Felt ; Calico ; Cotton Boll-Weevil ; Cowpea ; Cellulose 2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about race that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: BR 2026-07-22)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a vegetable hair or filament constituting the wing of the seed of the different species of Gossypium, a plant belonging to the order of Malvaceæ, growing both in the temperate temperate and tropitropical climates, indigenous in Asia, Africa, and South America. Both fiber and seed are produced in pods not unlike the outer shell of the walnut. When the seed ap- ② ① COSTUMES-ANCIENT 1. Greek 2. Roman proaches maturity the fiber in which it is enveloped, which had previously been in a cylindrical form filled with watery sap, becomes dry. The sap is then deposited upon the walls of the outer cell, which then collapses longitudinally and takes on a spiral form slightly blunt at the point where it is attached to the seed, and p pointed at the end. In the greenseed variety, the one chiefly cultivated it is of a white or yellowish hue, soft, flexible, and a non-conductor of heat. The fiber consists chiefly of carbonaceous material drawn from the atmosphere, and is one of the purest forms of cellulose. Although cotton cotton-seed, which is produced at the ratio in two and a half to three parts of seed to each one of fiber, has long been the source of valuable oils and food for cattle in Egypt and India, the cotton-seed of the United States was in former days mostly wasted. It has now become a secondary product of very great value. Tree cotton (G. arboreum) is found in India, China, Egypt, on the W. coast of Africa, and in some parts of America, especially in the West Indies. It only attains the height of from 12 to 20 feet; but another cotton-bearing tree (bombax ceiba), seen in the West Indies and elsewhere, familiarly called the umbrella tree, attains the height of 100 feet. The produce produce of the latter, however, is of a short and brittle fiber. Being unfit for spinning, it is only useful for stuffing pillows and beds. Shrub cotton (G. religiosum) occurs in one or other of its XXXXX 4 3 3. Early German 4. 13th Century varieties throughout the tropical parts of Asia, Africa, and America. In appearance it resembles a currant-bush. Its duration varies acording to the climate; in the hottest countries it is perennial, while in cooler places it becomes an annual. The Guiana, Brazil, and most of the West India cotton, is of this kind, the whole being long-stapled. Herbaceous cotton (G. herbaceum), commonly called the green-seed variety, important of is far the most useful and important of the three kinds noticed. It is an annual plant cultivated in the United States, India, China, and many other countries. It attains the height of 18 or 24 inches. The seed is usually planted in rows in March, April, and May; the May; the cotton is gathered by hand within a few days of the opening of the pods, in August, September, and October; in the United States often through November and December, or even till it becomes necessary to prepare the land for a new crop. It is to this kind that planters mainly confine their attention in the United States. In places where cotton is more extensively cultivated the following varieties are commonly distinguished: (1) Nankeen cotton, abundant in produce, the seed covered with down, the wool of a dirty yellow color, and usually lowpriced. (2) Green-seeded cotton, which, as well as the former, is grown in upland and middle districts, whence the C a C C C A. Wagon with raw cotton B. Vacuum pipe to draw cotton into gin latter is called upland, also short-staple, and, from the mode in which it was formerly cleaned, "bowed Georgia cotton." This kind was at first chiefly raised in Georgia and South Carolina, but in later years its cultivation has been very greatly extended throughout the Southern States. (3) Sea-island, or longstapled cotton, the finest of all, is distinguished by the black color of its seed, and the fine yellowish-white, strong and silky long staple by whi which it is surrounded; it is grown in the lower parts of Georgia and South Carolina, near the sea, between Charleston and Savannah, and on small islands adjoining the shore and in Florida. All the varieties of the plant require a dry and sandy soil. Marshy ground is wholly unfit for it, and a wet season is destructive to the crops, which are besides precarious from the disease to which the plant is subject, particularly blight. In general ge it flourishes gen most luxuriantly and yields produce of the best quality on the coast, as is proved by the growth of the seaisland cotton, which is mostly exposed to the action of the ocean's spray; and a manure of soft mud is known to impart a healthful action to the plant and to produce a staple at once strong and silky. To this rule, however, the fine Pernambuco cotton is an exception; also the Egyptian, the growth of the upper provinces being greatly superior to that of the Nile Delta. In the United States by special cultivation two, three, and even four bales of 500 pounds each can be made on a single acre. The cotton production of the United } d d e d d COTTON GIN C. Gin D. Press E. Cotton bale States in 1920 was 12,987,000 bales, compared with 11,421,000 bales in 1919. The total acreage was 36,383,000 in 1920, compared with 33,566,000 in 1919. The total farm value of the 1920 production was $914,590,000, compared with a value of the 1919 crop of $2,034,- 658,000. The increased value of the 1919 crop is due to the unusually high prices received for cotton. Industrial conditions in 1920 produced a lessened demand and consequently lesser price. The States producing the largest yields in 1920 were as follows: Texas, 4,200,000 bales; South Carolina, 1,530,- 000 bales; Oklahoma, 1,300,000 bales; Georgia, 1,400,000 bales; North Carolina, 840,000 bales; Mississippi, 885,000 bales; Alabama, 660,000 bales. There were imported to the United States in 1920 345,314,126 pounds of unmanufactured cotton, valued at $156,- 918,719. The largest quantity of this was received from Egypt. Other countries from which cotton was imported were Mexico, Peru, China, and British India. There were exported from the United States in 1920 6,915,408 bales, weighing 3,54 3,543,743,487 pounds, valued at $1,381,707,502. In 1919 there were exported 5,353,895 bales, valued at $873,- 579,669. Cotton growing has been greatly developed in recent years in Egypt. In 1919 there were grown about 1,188,000 bales of 500 pounds each. The Brazilian crop in the same year was estimated at 1,600,000 bales; the Mexican crop at 120,000 bales; and the Spanish crop at 11,200 bales. The world's production of cotton in 1918 was ap- THE COTTON PLANT proximately 18,000,000 bales bal of 500 pounds each, and the consumption for the year 1919 was approximately 15,970,- 000 bales. The total number of spindles in the world was placed at 150,000,000. South Africa is undoubtedly destined to become a large producer of cotton. About 12,000 acres were planted in 1919. Cotton is affected by a variety of insect pests and stringent measures have been taken in recent years to destroy these. The bollworm and the bollweevil are especially destructive. A World's Cotton Conference was held in New Orleans in 1919 with the purpose of adopting the uniform size of the bale, finding new sources of cotton, and bringing about uniform classification, etc. According to data submitted at this conference there were more than 6,000,000 persons engaged in the cotton industry throughout the world and about $20,- 000,000 was invested in the growing, sale, and manufacture of cotton.