1. If you were buying kitchen toweling for use at home, what material would you buy?
2. Name three fuzzy cotton materials and tell their uses.
3. Decide whether you are to make a sample book. Begin to collect samples of cotton materials for it.
4. Write quickly on the blackboard the names of six common cotton materials. Ask mother to name six.
Lesson 2
THE STORY OF COTTON GROWING
Do you know that our country produces three-fourths of the cotton of the world? Where is it grown? Have you heard the story of cotton? Let us learn about it.
While the girls of Pleasant Valley school waited for the cotton toweling to come from the store, they studied about where cotton is grown. Cotton is the cheapest and most important textile fiber. What does the word textile mean? Look up the word in the school dictionary. More clothing is made from cotton than from any other fiber.
Where does cotton grow? Perhaps you have lived in the Southern States. Can you name them without looking at your geography? Can you tell why it is warmer in those states and why cotton grows so well there, and not in Northern States? Texas produces more cotton than any other state. In what other countries of the world do you think cotton is grown? John Alden and Frank Allen heard the girls studying about cotton, and they told Miss James that they thought the boys would like to learn, too.
Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture.
Fig. 5.—The flower and leaf of the cotton plant. The size of the flower is about four inches across.