Like many other things the origin of the Cotton plant is shrouded in mystery, and many writers are agreed that it originally came from the East, but it will be seen later on that equally strong claims can be presented from other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Many of us have been amused at the curious ideas which people, say of a hundred years ago, had of the Coral Polyp.
Even to-day children may be heard singing in school,
"Far adown the silent ocean
Dwells the coral insect small"!
Not a few of the early naturalists believed that the Coral was a plant and while living in the sea water it was soft, and when dead it became hard!
We smile at this, of course, but it was not until actual investigation on the spot, as to what the Coral was, that the truth came out.
It was then discovered to be an animal and not a plant, and that during life its hard limy skeleton was covered by soft muscular tissue, which, when decomposing, was readily washed away by the sea, leaving the hard interior exposed as coral.
When the absurd beliefs are read which found credence among all classes of the people during the middle ages, and down even to the end of the seventeenth century, as to what the cotton boll or pod was, the reader is inclined to rub his eyes and think surely he must be reading "Baron Munchausen" over again, for a nearer approach to the wonderful statements of that former-fabled traveller it would be difficult to find than the simple crude conceptions which prevailed of the growth, habits, and physical characteristics of the Cotton plant.
The subject of the early myths and fables of the plant in question has been very fully treated by the late Mr. Henry Lee, F. L. S., who was for a time at the Brighton Aquarium. His book, the "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," shows indefatigable research for a correct explanation of the myth, and after a strictly impartial inquiry he comes to the conclusion that all the various phases which these fabulous concoctions assumed, had their beginnings in nothing more or less than the simple mature pod of the Cotton plant.
It will not be necessary to consider here more than one or two of these very curious beliefs about cotton. By some it was supposed that in a country which went by the name "The Tartars of the East," there grew a wonderful tree which yielded buds still more wonderful. These, when ripe, were said to burst and expose to view tiny lambs whose fleeces gave a pure white wool which the natives made into different garments.
By and by, a delightfully curious change took place, and it is found that the fruit which was formerly said to have the little lamb within, was now changed into a live lamb attached to the top of the plant. Mr. Lee says: "The stem or stalk on which the lamb was suspended above the ground, was sufficiently flexible to allow the animal to bend downward, and browse on the herbage within its reach. When all the grass within the length of its tether had been consumed, the stem withered and the plant died. This plant lamb was reported to have bones, blood, and delicate flesh, and to be a favourite food of wolves, though no other carnivorous animal would attack it."