Cotton tree

“ The cotton-growing business in India owes a good deal to this garden, as it has helped the distribution of the plants, and made a great many experiments to learn the variety of cotton-tree best adapted to any particular soil. Most of the Indian cotton is grown on a bush, as in the United States, and has to be renewed every year from the seed ”

“ COTTON, a soft downy substance; the production of the gossypium, L. or cotton-tree, a genus of plants comprising twelve species, all of which are natives of warm climates, though four only are cultivated in fields to a very considerable extent. This plant is propagated by seeds, and when reared in Britain, requires to be kept in a hot-house, where it will produce both seeds and its peculiar down.
The cotton used in the manufactures of Britain, is chiefly obtained from the West Indian plantations. It is, in general, of a pale red, but sometimes so short as to be unfit for spinning. ”

“ There are several species of the cotton-tree, but I shall confine myself to that which is the most common and the most useful in this colony. This species of cotton, which grows upon a tree about six or eight feet high, bears before it is a year old, and produces two crops annually, each of about twenty ounces in weight; the leaves are something like those of the vine, of a bright green, and the fibres of a cinnamon colour. ”

“ The shrub cotton grows in almost every country where the annual herbaceous cotton is found. Its duration varies according to the climate. In some places, as in the West Indies, it is biennial or triennial; in others, as in India, Egypt, &c., it lasts from six to ten years; in the hottest climates it is perennial; and in the cooler countries it becomes an annual.
The tree-cotton, Gossypium arboreum, grows in India, Egypt, China, the interior and western coast of Africa, and in some parts of America. ”

“ But their great height, the peculiarly graceful curve of their growth, and the excessive thickness of the drooping foliage of hundreds of them clustered together produce an effect which nothing can surpass.
The cotton-tree is almost as beautiful when standing alone. The trunk of this tree grows to a magnificent height, and with magnificent proportions: it is frequently straight; and those which are most beautiful throw out no branches till they have reached a height greater than that of any ordinary tree with us. ”

“ This was the celebrated “cotton-wood,” a species of poplar (Populus angulatus) . I say celebrated, because, being almost the only tree of large size which is found throughout the region of the great plains, it is well-known to all hunters and prairie travellers, who regard it with a peculiar veneration. A grove of cotton-wood is always a glad sight to those who traverse the limitless levels of the prairie. It promises shelter from the wind or sun, wood for the camp-fire, and, above all, water to slake the thirst. ”

“ This is not usual in the cotton-tree, although they are always, at their full growth, of a great height and the trunk large.
I here observed also a tree bearing a singular fruit, the name of which has escaped my recollection. It is larger than, and much resembles an orange, but has merely a very thin skin, with pores like the orange, inside of which is a shell as hard as that of the cocoa-nut. This shell is about the thickness of a half-crown, and the kernel (which completely fills the shell) is a little thicker in consistence than butter, and of an acrid taste. ”

“ The cottonwood (Populus monilifera) is the most characteristic tree of the plains and of the arid region between the Rockies and the Sierras. It is a species of poplar and takes its name from the white downy blossom fronds, resembling cotton, which come out upon it in the spring. The cottonwood and a species of stunted oak, with the mesquite in the south, are almost the only trees to be found upon the great plains extending from the Saskatchewan southward into Texas. ”

“ Cotton is a world-wide product. It grows in all warm countries everywhere, sometimes as a tree and sometimes as a shrub. It is usually spoken of as a plant. There was cotton grown in Chicago last year. Not in a hot house, but in a back yard with very little attention. A little girl got some seed, planted it, and had some fine bolls in the fall. It is a pretty plant, and was cultivated in China nearly a thousand years ago as a garden plant. ”

“ Cotton is cultivated to latitude 40 in the new world, but extends to Astrachan in latitude 46 in the old. The sugar cane, the plantain, the mulberry, the betel nut, the indigo tree, the tea tree, repay the labours of the cultivator in India and China; and several of these plants have been transferred, with success, to America and the West Indies. In equinoctial America a great number of inhabitants find abundant nourishment on a narrow space cultivated with plantain, cassava yams, and maize. The bread fruit tree begins to be cultivated in the Manillas, and extends through the Pacific ”

“ Tree Cotton and Herbaceous Cotton are both cultivated in Brazil. The best kinds of Sea Islands have been tried, but have not succeeded.
Compared with the United States, the methods of cultivation pursued in Brazil are exceedingly primitive and irregular. No such thing as ploughing or preparing of the soil is adopted.
The only preparation seems to be to rid the land of cotton stumps, and this is done in a somewhat careless and indifferent manner. It would seem that as little labour as possible is expended [Pg 48] upon the land in preparing it for the reception of seed. ”

“ The appearance of a well-cultivated cotton-field, if it has escaped the ravages of insects and the destruction of the elements, is of singular beauty. Although it may be a mile in extent, still it is as carefully wrought as is the mold of the limited garden of the coldest climate. The cotton-leaf is of a delicate green, large and luxuriant; the stalk indicates rapid growth, yet it has a healthy and firm look. Viewed from a distance, the perfecting plant has a warm and glowing expression. ”

“ The cotton-plant, like the orange, has often on one stalk every possible growth; and often, on the same limb, may sometimes be seen the first-opened blossom, and the bolls, from their first development as "forms," through every size, until they have burst open and scattered their rich contents to the ripening winds. ”

“ The cotton plant is in reality a perennial, becoming quite shrubby with age, but in cultivation it is treated as an annual, being grown from seeds planted each spring. Three or four seeds are planted to each hill, the hills being about three feet apart. After sprouting the weaker individuals are removed, and at the end of three or four months the remaining carefully cultivated plants are pruned to make them more spreading and give a better yield of cotton. The plants grow quite rapidly, the cotton maturing about five months after planting. ”

“ It is clear that when a seed is ready to be set free, and is provided by a tuft of hair, such as is seen on the cotton seed, dandelion and willow herb, it becomes a very easy matter for it to be carried ever so far, when a good breeze is blowing. Most of us have blown, when children, at the crown of white feathery matter in the dandelion, and have been delighted to see the tiny parachutes carrying off its tiny seed to be afterward deposited, and ultimately take root and appear as a new plant. Much in the same way, before it was cultivated, the Cotton plant perpetuated its own species. ”

“ They are planted in straight rows, six feet apart; and the earth between them, of a rich Spanish-red colour, is kept entirely clean from weeds. The plants grow to the height of seven feet, and spread in full-leaved branches, bearing brilliant white and gold-hued flowers. When in full bloom, a cotton-field by itself is a gorgeous landscape. ”

“ Daily in the early mornings he is to be seen casting his eyes down the pod-laden rows of cotton plants, to see if he can count a few ripe open bolls as he stands at the head of a row. If this be so, he knows that his harvest is close at hand, and his pickers must be ready at any moment to begin what is certainly the most tedious and difficult work of the plantation, namely, picking the raw cotton from the bursting bolls. ”

“ This plant may be cultivated in lands newly cleared, and not yet proper for tobacco, much less for indigo, which requires a ground well worked like a garden. The seeds of cotton are planted three feet asunder, more or less according to the quality of the soil: the field is weeded at the proper season, in order to clear it of the noxious weeds, and fresh earth laid to the root of the plant, to secure it against the winds. The cotton requires weeding, neither so often, nor so carefully as other plants; and the care of gathering is the employment of young people, incapable of harder labour. ”

“ Two kinds of the black-seed or long-staple variety thrived in the sea-islands and along the coast from Delaware to Georgia, but only the hardier and more prolific green-seed or short-staple cotton could be raised inland. The labor of cultivating and harvesting cotton of any kind was very great. The fiber, growing in bolls resembling a walnut in size and shape, had to be taken by hand from every boll, as it has to be today, for no satisfactory cotton harvester has yet been invented. ”

“ After the crop is gathered, the ground is suffered to be overrun with weeds and brushwood; which, when years have elapsed, are cut down and burnt, and the field is re-planted. Cotton here is not in classification; it is gathered and sold in the seed, and ranges from ten to fifteen cents per pound. It is generally superior, both in texture and color; but the indolence of the natives, and other causes, will prevent the extensive cultivation of that article for many years to come. ”

“ There is much conflict of opinion in localising the primitive habitat of this type, and it is now thought that the present stock is probably the result of hybridisation of several species more or less related to each other. However, the areas in which this class of cotton grows are very numerous and extensive, for we find it growing in India, China, Arabia, Persia, Asia Minor, and Africa. A very characteristic feature of this plant is that it quickly decays after podding, when cultivated as an annual. ”

“ At the point of connection each seed bears a small light brown patch. This form is generally known to the officers at the British Cotton Growing Association plantation as “Kidney.” All these varieties are cultivated throughout the forest country, and extend to some distance beyond; being replaced in the drier parts of the Northern Territories by a small plant with a white woolly seed. No cotton in a wild state has been seen in the country, and isolated plants, found springing up in open places surrounded by forest, are generally easily traceable to formerly existing cultivation. ”

“ From what has already been said, it will be quite clear that the Cotton plant will only successfully thrive in those regions on the earth's surface where there are suitable temperature and soil, and a proper and adequate supply of moisture both in the atmosphere and soil. ”

“ This description by Theophrastus is remarkably correct as applied to the herbaceous variety of the cotton-plant, from which the chief supply of cotton for spinning and weaving into cloth has always been obtained. In its mode of growth—branched, spreading, and flexible—it may well be likened to the dog-rose; and its palmate leaves bear a close resemblance to those of the black mulberry, which differ little from the leaves of some varieties of the vine. ”

“ The seeds are dropped along, from the small end of a gourd, into drills made with one corner of the hoe. The plants, when partly grown, are not transferred to another place, as in Asia, but are suffered to grow and ripen in the original drills. The crop is secured like wheat, and the husks are forced from the grain by a machine, which leaves the kernels more perfect than the methods adopted in other countries. [21]
28. Cotton is cultivated in the East and West Indies, North and South America, Egypt, and in many other parts of the world, where the climate is sufficiently warm for the purpose. ”

“ A person carrying a bag of cotton seed follows the planter and scatters the seed into the channel. A small harrow follows, covering the seed, and the work of planting is complete.
A planting-gang consists of drivers for the planters, drivers for the harrows, persons who scatter the seed, and attendants to supply them with seed. The seed is drawn from the gin-house to the field in ox-wagons, and distributed in convenient piles of ten or twenty bushels each.
Cotton-seed has never been considered of any appreciable value, and consequently the negroes are very wasteful in using it. ”

“ The cotton fiber is subjected to further processes of cleaning, carding, etc., before it is ready to be manufactured into cloth fabrics, thread, etc.
Nearly all parts of the cotton plant find a use. After the cotton is picked, the stalks are burnt upon the fields or “plowed under” to serve as a fertilizer for the soil, which would otherwise become impoverished very rapidly. The bark of the root is collected and employed medicinally, its medicinal properties being highly lauded by the negroes of the South. The seeds yield the cottonseed oil, which is not unlike olive oil. ”

“ Our route lay, for the first six miles, up the river near its bank; and then we turned more to the west. We passed half a dozen cotton plantations, some quite large, and saw an army of negroes picking it.
The cotton plant grows about as high as a man's head, has blossoms about as big as that of a small rose, and resembling in appearance the hollyhock, but more extensive branches. The pod is about the size and shape of the outer covering of a walnut; and when ripe, it opens in quarters, and presents the cotton in full view. ”