Cotton consists of the fine long hairs which grow from the seeds of several varieties of Gossypium, a plant belonging to the natural order of Malvaceæ. These hairs are so long and numerous that they completely fill the pod or seed vessel; they are very delicate, and of the same size throughout, and but seldom jointed, they are each separate from the other.
The cotton plant is chiefly cultivated in America and India. In India, and some of the islands in the Indian Ocean, cotton has been cultivated, spun, and woven into textures from time immemorial. Cotton fabrics were in use in Mexico before its conquest by the Spaniards, and have been used in China for many hundred years; its chief source now is America, where more than two hundred times the quantity is grown at present than was grown there half-a-century ago; but the internal communication brought about by railways in India, may, in all probability, revive the cultivation of cotton in that country; the cost of conveyance from the interior having been one of the greatest drawbacks to its exportation.
Cotton is not only cheaper than linen (which is woven from flax), but has several advantages over it: it takes dyes much better, and produces brighter colors; the improvements made in the machinery for spinning and weaving cotton, have not only enabled us to match the spinners and weavers of India, which, for a long time supplied nearly the whole of Europe, but at the present time, cotton cloths of English manufacture are exported to India for the purpose of clothing the natives of that country.
FLAX.
FLAX.
Flax is obtained from the stalks of the flax plant Linum Usitatissimum, it is supposed to have been originally brought from Egypt, where linens have been woven from its fibres from time immemorial. It is now found growing wild in this country, and is cultivated in most parts of Europe, either for its stalks to make flax, or for its seed (linseed), which is used for fattening cattle, and yields an oil (linseed oil) much used in the making of paint. The plant grows to two or three feet in height, bears a blue flower in July, and has a great hollow stem; when gathered, it is pulled up by the roots. The fibres of flax are very long and even; it is the inner part which yields the best fibres.