Cotton Sentence Examples

Cotton has pretty white and red flowers on it.

Its chief exports are of cotton, hemp, sugar and stone.

Up comes the cotton, down goes the woven cloth; up comes the silk, down goes the woollen; up come the books, but down goes the wit that writes them.

We are sympathetic to the laid-off workers, but no one would suggest the cotton gin not be installed.

Her head felt heavy and like it was stuffed with cotton, the way she felt when she came to after surgery.

At an early date Hastings was placed in charge of an aurang or factory in the interior, where his duties would be to superintend the weaving of silk and cotton goods under a system of money advances.

Carigara is open to coast trade, exports large quantities of hemp, raises much rice, and manufactures cotton and abaca fabrics.

Lumber, sugar, cotton and rice are produced in the neighbourhood.

In 1894 the excess of imports over exports fell to 2,720,000, but by 1898 it had grown to 8,391,000, in consequence chiefly of the increased importation of coal, raw cotton and cotton thread, pig and cast iron, old iron, grease and oil-seeds for use in Italian industries.

In the tropical district of the Limpopo valley there is some cultivation of the coffee-tree, and this region is also adapted for the growing of tea, sugar, cotton and rice.

It was the first German colony to dispense (1903-1904) with an imperial subsidy towards its upkeep. Several firms have acquired plantations in which coffee, cocoa, cotton, kola and other tropical products are cultivated.

The chief trade is in, and the principal exports are, palm oil and kernels, rubber, cotton, maize, groundnuts (Arachis), shea-butter from the Bassia parkii (Sapotaceae), fibres of the Raphia vinifera, and the Sansevieria guineensis, indigo, and kola nuts, ebony and other valuable wood.

Helmond is one of the industrial centres of the province, and possesses over a score of factories for cotton and silk weaving, cotton printing, dyeing, iron founding, brewing, soap boiling and tobacco dressing, as well as engine works and a margarine factory.

Its industries include manufactures of cotton stuffs, alcohol and soap.

Tile chief textile plants are hemp, flax and cotton.

As in the case of cotton, Italian woollen fabrics are conquering the home market in increasing degree.

In the mining and woollen industries they have fallen, but have increased in mechanical, chemical, silk and cotton industries.

Both came into the possession of the Museum with the valuable collection of papers which had belonged to Sir Robert Cotton, who had obtained possession of both.

The spinning and weaving of cotton and the manufacture of hosiery, of both of which Troyes is the centre, are the main industries of the department; there are also a large number of distilleries, tanneries, oil works, tile and brick works, flour-mills, saw-mills and dyeworks.

The exports of Aube consist of timber, cereals, agricultural products, hosiery, wine, dressed pork, &c.; its imports include wool and raw cotton, coal and machinery, especially looms. The department is served by the Eastern railway, of which the main line to Belfort crosses it.

A variety of oil-bearing plants and green fodder, as also cotton, hemp, flax and poppies, are grown.

Cotton is grown in the vicinity, and is woven by the women into fabrics, which find a ready sale among the pagan tribes of the mountains.

The value of the total factory product was $57,45 1, 445 in 1905, when a little more than three-fourths was represented by lumber and timber products, cotton-seed oil and cake, and cotton goods.

The culture of cotton must be a clean one.

Pernambuco is chiefly agricultural, the lowlands being devoted to sugar and fruit, with coffee in some of the more elevated localities, the agreste region to cotton, tobacco, Indian corn, beans and stock, and the sertao to grazing and in some localities to cotton.

Among other important manufactures are foundry and machine shop products ($6,944,392 in 1905); flour and grist-mill products ($4,428,664); cars and shop construction and repairs by steam railways ($2,502,789); saws; waggons and carriages ($2,049,207); printing and publishing (book and job, $1,572,688; and newspapers and periodicals, $2,715,666); starch; cotton and woollen goods; furniture ($2,528,238); canned goods ($1,693,818); lumber and timber ($1,556,466); structural iron work ($1,541,732); beer ($1,300,764); and planing-mill products, sash, doors and blinds ($1,111,264).

The weaving of cotton, for which the place was at one time so famous that its name became identified with its calico, is no longer of any importance.

The most striking trees in the forest region are, in the basin of the Cavalla, the giant Funtumia elastica, which grows to an altitude of 200 ft.; various kinds of Parinarium, Oldfieldia and Khaya; the bombax or cotton tree, giant dracaenas, many kinds of fig; Borassus palms, oil palms, the climbing Calamus palms, and on the coast the coconut.

The products of the province are tea (the best quality of which is grown at Gan-hwa and the greatest quantity at Ping-kiang), hemp, cotton, rice, paper, tobacco, tea-oil and coal.

Many kinds of vegetables, and cotton, wheat and barley are also grown.

Gold-working, the making of arms and musical instruments, wood-carving, cotton, silk and gold thread weaving are of importance.

The industries consist of manufactures of cotton, linen, woollens and worsteds, and leather.

The cotton factories excel chiefly in the production of red and printed cottons.

With regard to the imports into Russia-they consist mainly of raw materials and machinery for the manufactures, and of provisions, the principal items being raw cotton, 17% of the aggregate; machinery and metal goods, 13%; tea, 5%; mineral ores, 5%; gums and resins, 4%; wool and woollen yarns, 32%; textiles, 3%; fish, 3%; with leather and hides, chemicals, silks, wine and spirits, colours, fruits, coffee, tobacco and rice.

This railway has become important for the export of raw cotton from Central Asia to Russia.

The province produces much wheat, barley, rice, millet, cotton, but the authorities every now and then prohibiting the export of cereals, the people generally sow just as much as they think will suffice for their own wants.

The principal types to be found in the United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe are open wagons (the lading often protected from the weather by tarpaulin sheets), mineral wagons, covered or box wagons for cotton, grain, &c., sheep and cattle trucks, &c. The principal types of American freight cars are box cars, gondola cars, coal cars, stock cars, tank cars and refrigerator cars, with, as in other countries, various special cars for special purposes.

The trade is chiefly confined to the export of cotton.

Macabebe's principal industries are the cultivation of rice and sugar cane, the distilling of nipa alcohol, and the weaving of hemp and cotton fabrics.

The industries of the town include cotton spinning and weaving, silk spinning, the manufacture of tobacco, ropes, metal-ware, furniture, &c. The market gardens of the neighbourhood are famous, and there is a considerable shipping trade by the river and the Ludwigskanal.

The valleys are treeless, except in the vicinity of the Truckee river, where considerable quantities of the cotton wood and a small amount of willow, birch, and wild cherry are found.

These districts are pastoral, and the lower fertile lands are cultivated for sugar, cotton, maize, tobacco, rice, beans, and mandioca - sugar being the principal product.

The only manufacturing industries of importance are cotton mills, sugar factories and distilleries, one of the largest sugar usines in Brazil being located at Riachuelo near Larangeiras.

Sugar-cane, Indian corn and cotton are also produced in abundance, and cattle are raised.

Some beautiful furniture is made out of the hardwood from the mountains, and cotton fabrics are woven in considerable quantities by the women.

It is the trade centre of a very fertile section of the Washita Valley, whose principal products are Indian corn, cotton, fruits and vegetables and live-stock.

Tobacco and cotton succeed well in the plains and low grounds, though not at present cultivated to any great extent.

Cereals are imported from the Black Sea and Danube ports, ready-made clothing from Austria and Germany, articles of luxury from Austria and France, and cotton textiles from England.

The chief cultivated plants are maize, the sugar-cane, tobacco, cotton, coffee and especially henequen, the so-called "Sisal hemp," which is a strong, coarse fibre obtained from the leaves of the Agave rigida, var.

The principal articles of its trade are rice and cotton, some sugar cane (nai shakar), flax (Katun) and hemp (Kanab) are also grown.

Mississippi is devoted largely to the cultivation of cotton.

The acreage of cotton increased from 2,106,215 acres in 1879 to 3,220,000 in 1907; the yield increased from 936,111 bales in 1879 to 1,468,177 bales in 1907.

Cotton is grown in every county of the state, but the large yields are in the Delta (Bolivar, Coaohma, Washington, Yazoo and Leflore counties), the greatest cotton-producing region of the world, and in Monroe, Lowndes and Noxubee counties on the Alabama border.

The largest Indian-corn producing districts are nearly the same as those which produce the most cotton; oats and wheat are grown chiefly in the north-eastern quarter of the state, and rice in the south-western quarter.

In the eastern portion of the Coastal Plain Region are the cotton rat, rice-field rat, marsh rabbit, big-eared bat, brown pelican, swallow-tailed kite, black vulture and some rattlesnakes and cotton-mouth moccasin snakes, all of which are common farther south; and there are some turtles and terrapins, and many geese, swans, ducks, and other water-fowl.

The principal crops are cotton, Indian corn, tobacco, hay, wheat, sweet potatoes, apples and peanuts.

The yield of cotton increased from 62,901,790 lb in 1869 to 307,500,000 lb in 1909.

Farmers of the Piedmont Plateau formerly kept large numbers of horses and cattle from April to November in ranges in the Mountain Region, but with the opening of portions of that country to cultivation the business of pasturage declined, except as the cotton plantations demanded an increased supply of mules; there were 25,259 mules in 1850, 110,011 in 1890, 138,786 in 1900, and 181,000 in 1910.

During the quarter of a century between 1880 and 1905 a great change was wrought in the industrial life of the state by a phenomenal growth of cotton manufacturing.

A cotton mill was erected in Lincoln county about 1813, and by 1840 about 25 small mills were in operation within the state.

In 1880 the total value of the manufactured products of thestatewas$20,095,037 in 1900 the value of the cotton manufactures alone was $28,372,789, and in 1905 $47, 2 54, 0 54.

The cotton mills are mostly in the Piedmont Plateau Region; durham|Durham, Durham county, and Winston, Forsyth county, are leading centres of tobacco manufacture; and High Point (pop. in 1900, 4163) in Randolph is noted for its manufacture of furniture.

Thompson, From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill, a Study of the Industrial Transition in North Carolina (New York, 1906), contains some interesting observations on the changes in social conditions resulting from the growth of the cotton-manufacturing industry.

The produce consists of some grain, cotton, tobacco, &c., but fruit is more abundant.

In addition to being the principal emporium for the Austrian traffic on the Elbe, Tetschen has a considerable industry, its products comprising chemicals, oil, soap, cotton stuffs, plaster of Paris, glazed and coloured paper, cellulose, beer, flour and preserved fish.

Owing to its excellent harbour Baku is a chief depot for merchandise coming from Persia and Transcaspia - raw cotton, silk, rice, wine, fish, dried fruit and timber - and for Russian manufactured goods.

Among the general products are Indian corn, tobacco, mandioca, beans, pork and cotton.

The cultivated plants of Arabia are much the same as those of northern India - wheat, barley, and the common Sorghum, with dates and lemons, cotton and indigo.

The chief industry is the weaving of cloth from native grown cotton.

The products of the territorial coast lands are sugar, cotton, tobacco, maize, palm oil, coffee, fine woods and medicinal plants.

There are cotton and cigarette factories at the town of Tepic, besides sugar works and distilleries on the plantations.

The exports consist chiefly of woollen yarn, woollens, cotton goods, cotton yarn, machinery, &c. and coal.

It is in a region especially devoted to the growing of cotton and grain and to poultry raising, and an annual county fair is held here.

There are considerable manufactures; chiefly of cotton and linen.

Rye and wheat are the most important crops harvested in northern Caucasia, but oats, barley and maize are also cultivated, whereas in Transcaucasia the principal crops are maize, rice tobacco and cotton.

Manufacturing industry is confined to a few articles and commodities, such as cement, tea, tin cans (for oil), cotton goods, oil refineries, tobacco factories, flour-mills, silk-winding mills (especially at Shusha and Jebrail in the south of Elisavetpol), distilleries and breweries.

Sonsonate is the centre of a rich agricultural district, and one of the busiest manufacturing towns in the republic. It produces cotton cloth, pottery, mats and baskets, boots and shoes, sugar, starch, cigars and spirits.

In the littoral districts excellent crops of cereals, cotton, fruit, wine and tobacco are obtained with the aid of irrigation.

Its principal productions are coffee, sugar, and cacao, and - less important - cotton, tobacco,.

The worsted, woollen and cotton industries, and the iron, steel and machinery manufactures are very extensive.

Wheat, coal, cotton, petroleum, wood, lime and cement are brought into Venice for shipment to the Levant or for distribution over Italy and Europe.

An active trade is carried on with Austria, especially through the Isakovets and Gusyatin custom-houses, corn, cattle, horses, skins, wool, linseed and hemp seed being exported, in exchange for wooden wares, linen, woollen stuffs, cotton, glass and agricultural implements.

It carries on a considerable trade in cotton and linen and embroidered muslin.

Three cemeteries remain intact - King's chapel burying ground, with the graves of John Winthrop and John Cotton; the Old Granary burial ground in the heart of the city, where Samuel Sewall, the parents of Franklin, John Hancock, James Otis and Samuel Adams are buried; and Copp's Hill burial ground, containing the tombs of the Mathers.

Fibres and vegetable grasses, wool, hides and skins, cotton, sugar, iron and steel and their manufactures, chemicals, coal, and leather and its manufactures are the leading imports; provisions, leather and its manufactures, cotton and its manufactures, breadstuffs, iron and steel and.

The argument of Otis on the writs of assistance Americans, including Charles Francis Adams and Edward Everett, and also various descendants of Cotton, united to restore the southwest chapel of St Botolph's church, and to erect in it a memorial tablet to Cotton's memory.

The industry includes sugarrefining, brewing, the manufacture of cotton and woollen stuffs, leather goods and agricultural implements.

It is one of the chief manufacturing places in Rhenish Prussia, its principal industries being the spinning and weaving of cotton, the manufacture of silks, velvet, ribbon and damasks, and dyeing and bleaching.

South America, the West Indies, tropical Africa and Southern Asia are the homes of the various members, but the plants have been introduced with success into other lands, as is well indicated by the fact that although no species of Gossypium is native to the United States of America, that country now produces over twothirds of the world's supply of cotton.

Microscopic examination of a specimen of mature cotton shows that the hairs are flattened and twisted, resembling somewhat in general appearance an empty and twisted fire hose.

It also distinguishes the true cotton from the silk cottons or flosses, the fibres of which have no twist, and do not readily spin into thread, and for this reason, amongst others, are very considerably less important as textile fibres.

The chief of these silk cottons is kapok, consisting of the hairs borne on the interior of the pods (but not attached to the seeds) of Eriodendron anfractuosum, the silk cotton tree, a member of the Bombacaceae, an order very closely allied to the Malvaceae.

Then again, during at least the last four centuries, cotton plants have been distributed from one country to another, only to render still more difficult any attempt to establish definitely the origin of the varieties now grown.

Watt's exhaustive work on Wild and Cultivated Cotton Plants of the World (1907) is the latest authority on the subject; and his views on some debated points have been incorporated in the following account.

Whatever may be its true botanical name it is the plant known in commerce as " Sea Island " cotton, owing to its introduction and successful cultivation in the Sea Islands and the coastal districts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

By careful selection (the methods of which are described below) in the United States, the quality of the product was much improved, and on the recent revival of the cotton industry in the West Indies American " Sea Island " seed was introduced back again to the original home of the species.

Egyptian cotton is usually regarded as being derived from the same species.

Egyptian cotton in length of staple is intermediate between average Sea Island and average Upland.

It has, however, certain characteristics which cause it to be in demand even in the United States, where during recent years Egyptian cotton has comprised about 80% of all the " foreign " cottons imported.

It is usually regarded as the standard Egyptian cotton; the lint is yellowish brown, the seeds black and almost smooth, usually with a little tuft of short green hairs at the ends.

The lint is pure white, very fine and silky, but not so strong as Mitafifi cotton.

Amongst the varieties of cotton which are derived from this species appear to be Pernambuco, Maranham, Ceara, Aracaty and Maceio cottons.

Levant cotton is derived from this species.

In India it is known as Nurma or Deo cotton, and is usually stated to be employed for making thread for the turbans of the priests.

The following table, summarized from the Handbook to the Imperial Institute Cotton Exhibition, 1905, giving the length of staple and value on one date (January 16, 1905), will serve to indicate the comparative values of some of the principal commercial cottons.

The cotton plant requires certain conditions for its successful cultivation; but, given these, it is very little affected by seasonal vicissitudes.

Cotton requires for its development from six to seven months of favourable weather.

During June and the first fortnight in July plenty of sunshine is necessary, accompanied by sufficient rain to promote healthy, but not excessive, growth; the normal rainfall in the cotton belt for this period is about 42 in.

Flowering and fruiting go on continually, although in diminishing degree, until the advent of frost, which kills the flowers and young bolls and so puts an end to the production of cotton for the season.

In either case an adequate but not excessive rainfall, increasing from the time of sowing to the period of active growth, and then decreasing as the bolls ripen, with a dry picking season, combined with sunny days and warm nights, provide the ideal conditions for successful cotton cultivation.

In regions where climatic conditions are favourable, cotton grows more or less successfully on almost all kinds of soil; it can be grown on light sandy soils, loams, heavy clays and sandy " bottom " lands with varying success.

The best soil for cotton is thus a deep, welldrained loam, able to afford a uniform supply of moisture during the growing period.

Wind is another important factor, as cotton does not do well in localities subject to very high winds; and in exposed situations, otherwise favourable, wind belts have at times to be provided.

Nothing definite can be said with regard to a rotation of crops Sea Island Cotton - Carolina Sea Island Florida „ „ Georgia „ Barbados „ „ Egyptian Cottons Yannovitch.

This knowledge is still lacking with regard to most of the cotton soils.

The exhaustion of the soil under cotton culture is chiefly due to the loss of humus, and nature soon puts this back in the excellent climate of the cotton-growing belt.

In spite of the clean culture, good crops of cotton have been grown on some soils in the south for more than forty successive years.

If the burningup of humus and the leaching of the soil could be prevented, there is no reason whyia cotton soil should not produce good crops continuously for an indefinite time.

The only time the hoe is used is to thin out the cotton in the row; all the rest of the cultivation is by various forms of ploughs and so-called cultivators.

When the weather is not favourable at the fruiting stage, the otherwise hardy cotton plant displays its great weakness in this way.

Cotton-picking is at once the most difficult and most expensive operation in cotton production.

It is difficult to get the hands to work until the cotton is fully opened, and it is hard to induce them to pick over ioo lb a day, though some expert hands are found in every cotton plantation who can pick twice as much.

The cotton falls out easily or is dropped.

It has been commonly thought that the production of cotton in the south is limited by the amount that can be picked, but this limit is evidently very remote.

There is in the cotton states a rural population of over 7,000,000, more or less occupied in cottongrowing, and capable, at the low average of ioo lb a day, of picking daily nearly 50o,000 bales.

It is evident, therefore, that if this number could work through the whole season of ioo days, they could pick three or four times as much cotton as the largest crop ever made.

When this has been accomplished the weight of the crop is reduced to about one-third, each 100 lb of seed cotton as picked yielding after ginning some 33 lb of lint and 66 lb of cotton seed.

The actual amounts differ with different varieties, conditions of cultivation, methods of ginning, &c.; a recent estimate in the United States gives 35% of lint for Upland cotton and 25% for Sea Island cotton as more accurate.

In modern commercial cotton production ginning machines are always used.

The simplest cotton gin in extensive use is the " churka," used from early times, and still largely employed in India and China.

It consists essentially of two rollers either both of wood, or one of wood and one of iron, geared to revolve in contact in opposite directions; the seed cotton is fed to the rollers, the lint is drawn through, and the seed being unable to pass between the rollers is rejected.

A similar, but larger machine, requiring about horse-power to run it, will turn out 50 to 60 lb of Egyptian or 60 to 80 lb of Sea Island cleaned cotton per hour.

By simple modifications the Macarthy gin can be used for all kinds of cotton.

This machine, under various modifications, is employed for ginning the greater portion of the cotton grown in the Southern States of America.

Saw gins do considerable damage to the fibre, but for short-stapled cotton they are largely used, owing to their great capacity.

Some of the American ginners are very large indeed, a number (Bulletin of the Bureau of the Census on Cotton Production) being reported as containing on the average 1 156 saws with an average production of 4120 bales of cotton.

The machine which will gin the largest quantity in the shortest time is naturally preferred, unless such injury is, occasioned as materially to diminish the market value of the cotton.

The cotton leaves the ginning machine in a very loose condition, and has to be compressed into bales for convenience of transport.

The American bale has been described in a standard American book on cotton as " the clumsiest, dirtiest, most expensive and most wasteful package, in which cotton or any other commodity of like value is anywhere put up."

The area devoted to cotton in Egypt is about 1,800,000 acres, and nine-tenths of it is in the Nile Delta.

The delta soil is typically a heavy, black, alluvial clay, very fertile, but difficult to work; admixture of sand is beneficial, and the localities where this occurs yield the best cotton.

Formerly in Egypt the cotton was treated as a perennial, but this practice has been generally abandoned, and fresh plants are raised from seed each year, as in America; one great advantage is that more than one crop can thus be obtained each year.

For cotton cultivation the land is ploughed, carefully levelled, and then thrown up into ridges about 3 ft.

The history of no agricultural product contains more of interest and instruction for the student of economics than does that of cotton seed in the United States.

Cotton seed in those days was the object of so much aversion that the planter burned it or threw it into running streams, as was most convenient.

Although used in the early days to a limited extent as a food for milch cows and other stock, and to a larger extent as a manure, no systematic efforts were made anywhere in the South to manufacture the seed until the later 'fifties, when the first cotton seed mills were established.

It is said that there were only seven cotton oil mills in the South in 1860.

Experience shows that 1000 lb of seed are produced for every 50o lb of cotton brought to market.

On the basis, therefore, of a cotton crop of io,000,000 bales of 500 lb each, there are produced 5,000,000 tons of cotton seed.

If about 3,000,000 tons only are pressed, there remain to be utilized on the farm 2,000,000 tons of cotton seed, which, if manufactured, would produce a total of $100,000,000 from cotton seed.

In contrast with the farmers of the 'sixties, the southern planter of the 10th century appreciates the value of his cotton seed, and farmers, too remote from the mills to get it pressed, now feed to their stock all the cotton seed they conveniently can, and use the residue either in compost or directly as manure.

Using average prices paid for nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash when bought in large quantities and in good forms, these ingredients, in a ton of cotton seed, amount to $9.00 worth of fertilizing material.

Compared with the commercial fertilizer which the farmer has to buy, cotton seed possesses, therefore, a distinct value.

The products of cotton seed have become important elements in the national industry of the United States.

The main product is the refined oil, which is used for a great number of purposes, such as a substitute for olive oil, mixed with beef products for preparation of compound lard, which is estimated to consume one-third of cotton seed oil produced in the States.

In comparative valuations of feeding stuffs it has been found that cotton seed meal exceeds corn meal by 62%, wheat by 67%, and raw cotton seed by 26%.

Cotton seed meal, in the absence of sufficient stock to consume it, is also used extensively as a fertilizer, and for this purpose it is worth, determining the price on the same basis as used above for the seed, from $19 to $20 per ton.

Though it is probably destined to be used even more extensively as a fertilizer before the demand for it as a feeding stuff becomes equal to the supply, practically all the cotton seed meal of the south will ultimately be used for feeding.

With the consideration of cotton seed oil and meal we have not, however, exhausted its possibilities.

Cotton seed hulls constitute about half the weight of the ginned seed.

After the seed of Upland cotton has been passed through a fine gin, which takes off the short lint or linters left upon it by the farmer, it is passed through what is called a sheller, consisting of a revolving cylinder, armed with numerous knives, which cut the seed in two and force the kernels or meats from the shells.

It was not long, however, before the stock-feeder in the South found that cotton seed hulls were an excellent substitute for hay.

Careful attention is now given to the employment of the seed in new cotton countries, and oil expression is practised in the West Indies.

Hull is the principal seat of the industry in Great Britain, and enormous quantities of Indian and Egyptian cotton seed are imported and worked up.

Some idea of the enormous damage wrought by the collective attacks of individually small and weak animals may be gathered from the fact that a conservative estimate places the loss due to insect attacks on cotton in the United States at the astounding figure of $60,000,000 (£12,000,000) annually.

Of this total no less than $40,000,000 (8,000,000) is credited to a small beetle, the cotton boll weevil, and to two caterpillars.

The following notes deal only with the practical side of the question, and as the United States produce some seven-tenths of the world's cotton crop attention is especially directed to the principal cotton pests of that country.

The cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis), a small grey weevil often called the Mexican boll weevil, is the most serious pest of cotton in the United States, where the damage done by it in 1907 was estimated at about £5,000,000.

Attention was drawn to it in 1862, when it caused the abandonment of cotton cultivation about Monclova in Mexico.

It is easily transported from place to place in seed-cotton, and for this reason the Egyptian government in 1904 prohibited the importation of American cotton seed.

These do not drop, but as the grubs develop the cotton is ruined and the bolls usually become discoloured and crack, their contents being rendered useless.

No certain remedy is known for the destruction on a commercial scale of the boll weevil, but every effort has been made in the United States to check the advance of the insect, to ascertain and encourage its natural enemies, and to propagate races of cotton which resist its attacks.

The Indians in part of Guatemala raise cotton, although the boll weevil is abundant.

The cotton bollworm (Chlorides obsoleta, also known as Heliothis armiger) is a caterpillar.

They bore holes and penetrate into flower-buds and young bolls, causing them to drop. Fortunately the " worms " prefer maize to cotton, and the inter-planting at proper times of maize, to be cut down and destroyed when well infested, is a method commonly employed to keep down this pest.

The boll worm is most destructive in the south-western states, where the damage done is said to vary from 2 to 60% of the crop. Taking a low average of 4%, the annual loss due to the pest is estimated at about 1 - 2,500,000, and it occupies second place amongst the serious cotton pests of the U.S.A. The boll worm is widely spread through the tropical and temperate zones.

It may occur in a country without being a pest to cotton, e.g.

It has not yet been reported as a cotton pest in the West Indies.

The cotton worm (Aletia argillacea) - also called cotton caterpillar, cotton army worm, cotton-leaf worm - is also one stage in the life-history of a moth.

The annual damage was in 1906 reduced to £r,000,000 to £ 2,000,000, and this on a larger area devoted to cotton than in the case of the estimate given above.

It is the most serious pest of cotton in the West Indies.

The Egyptian cotton worm is Prodenia littoralis.

The caterpillars (" cut worms ") of various species of Agrotis and other moths occur in all parts of the world and attack young cotton.

Locusts, green-fly, leaf-bugs, blister mites, and various other pests also damage cotton, in a similar way to that in which they injure other crops.

The " cotton stainers," various species of Dysdercus, are widely distributed, occurring for example in America, the West Indies, Africa, India, &c. The larvae suck the sap from the young bolls and seeds, causing shrivelling and reduction in quantity of fibre.

They are called " stainers " because their excrement is yellow and stains the fibre; also if crushed during the process of ginning they give the cotton a reddish coloration.

The Egyptian cotton seed bug or cotton stainer belongs to another genus, being Oxycarenus hyalinipennis.

They do considerable damage to cotton seed.

The seed was saved and gave rise to a row of plants all of which grew healthily in an infected field, whereas 95% of ordinary Sea Island cotton plants from seed from a non-infected field planted alongside as a control were killed.

No remedy is known for the disease, and cotton should not be planted on infected land for at least three or four years.

Many other diseases occur, but the above are sufficient to indicate some of the principal ones in the most important cotton countries of the world.

In the cotton belt of the United States it would be possible to put a still greater acreage under this crop, but the tendency is rather towards what is known as " diversified " or mixed farming than to making cotton the sole important crop. Cotton, however, is in increasing demand, and the problem for the American cotton planter is to obtain a better yield of cotton from the same area, - by " better yield " meaning an increase not only in quantity but also in quality of lint.

This ideal is before the cotton grower in all parts of the world, but practical steps are not always taken to realize it.

Inspection of a field of cotton shows that different plants vary as regards productiveness, length, and character of the lint, period of ripening, power of resistance to various pests and of withstanding drought.

These pickers go carefully over the field, usually just before the second picking, and gather ripe cotton from the best plants only; this selected seed cotton is ginned separately, and the seed used for sowing the next year's crop.

A more elaborate method of selection is practised by some of the Sea Island cotton planters in the Sea Islands, famous for the quality of their cotton.

The cotton from each is collected and kept separately, and at the end of the season carefully examined and weighed, and a final selection is then made which reduces the number to perhaps five; the cotton from each of these plants is gained separately and the seed preserved for sowing.

Carolina; but, through the selection of seed from early maturing individual plants, the cotton has been rendered much earlier, until now it is thoroughly adapted to the existing conditions.

The improvements desired in cotton vary to some degree in different countries, according to the present character of the plants, climatic conditions, the chief pests, special market requirements, and other circumstances.

Thus sometimes a field of cotton is attacked by some disease, perhaps " wilt," and a comparatively few plants are but very slightly affected.

Special interest attaches to experiments made in the United States to endeavour to raise races of cotton resistant to the boll weevil.

Attention has been paid in the West Indies to seed selection, by the officers of the imperial Department of Agriculture, with the object of retaining for West Indian Sea Island cotton its place as the most valuable cotton on the British market.

The World's Commercial Cotton Crop. It is impossible to give an exact return of the total amount of cotton produced in the world, owing to the fact that in China, India and other eastern countries, in Mexico, Brazil, parts of the Russian empire, tropical Africa, &c., considerable - in some cases very large - quantities of cotton are made up locally into wearing apparel, &c., and escape all statistical record.

The United States produced very nearly seven-tenths of the total " visible " cotton crops of the world.

In 1906 the United States contributed 65% of the commercial cotton, British India 19%,19%, Egypt 7%, and Russia 3%.

Of the countries which were prominent in the production of cotton in 1790, Brazil and Asiatic Turkey alone remain " (U.S.A. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin No 76).

United States of America.-The cultivation of cotton as a staple crop in the United States dates from about 1770, 1 although efforts appear to have been made in Virginia as far back as 1621.

In 1792 the quantity exported from the United States was only 1 It is related that in the year 1784 William Rathbone, an American merchant resident in Liverpool, received from one of his correspondents in the southern states a consignment of eight bags of cotton, which on its arrival in Liverpool was seized by the customhouse officers, on the allegation that it could not have been grown in the United States, and that it was liable to seizure under the Shipping Acts, as not being imported in a vessel belonging to the country of its growth.

At the close of the war in 1815 the revival of trade led to an increased demand, and the progress of cotton cultivation in America became rapid and continuous, until at length about 85% of the raw material used by English manufacturers was derived from this one source.

With a capacity for the production of cotton almost boundless, the crop which was so insignificant when the century began had in 1860 reached the enormous extent of 4,824,000 bales.

The colonies and dependencies of Great Britain, including India, seemed well able to grow all the cotton that could be required, whilst numerous other countries were ready to afford their co-operation.

A powerful stimulus was thus given to the growth of cotton in all directions; a degree of activity and enterprise never witnessed before was seen in India, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Africa, the West Indies, Queensland, New South Wales, Peru, Brazil, and in short wherever cotton could be produced; and there seemed no room to doubt that in a short time there would be abundant supplies independently of America.

But ten years afterwards, in the exhibition of 1872, which was specially devoted to cotton, a few only of the thirty-five countries which had sent their samples in 1862 again appeared, and these for the most part only to bear witness to disappointment and failure.

True, the supply from India had been more than doubled, the adulteration once so rife had been checked, and the improved quality and value of the cotton had been fully acknowledged, but still the superiority of the produce of the United States was proved beyond all dispute, and American cotton was again king.

The total area of the cotton-producing region in the States is estimated at 448,000,000 acres, of which in 1906 only about one acre in fifteen was devoted to cotton.

Cotton is now the second crop of the United States, being surpassed in value only by Indian corn (maize).

Cortes in 1519 is said to have received cotton garments as presents from the natives of Yucatan, and to have found the Mexicans using cotton extensively for clothing.

From 'goo to 1905 the crop was about ioo,000 bales per annum; the whole is consumed in local mills, and cotton is imported also from the United States.

The cotton is known in commerce under the name of the place of export, e.g.

Egyptian cotton is also grown.

British West Indies.-Cotton was cultivated as a minor crop in parts of the West Indies as long ago as the 17th century, and at the opening of the 18th century the islands supplied about 70% of all the cotton used in Great Britain.

Carolina, and so successful has the cultivation been that from some of the islands West Indian Sea Island cotton obtains a Taken with some modifications from the Agricultural News (1907), vi.

In 1902 the total area under cotton cultivation in the British West Indies was Soo acres.

The whole of this crop was Sea Island cotton, with the exception of the " Marie galante " grown in Carriacou.

Marie galante is a harsh cotton of the Peruvian or Brazilian type.

The low yield per acre in this island, and also the low value of the lint per lb compared with the Sea Island cotton, is clearly apparent.

Cyprus has a soil and climate suited to cotton, which was formerly grown here on a large scale.

The cotton grown is rather short-stapled and goes mainly to Marseilles and Trieste.

The area under cotton is about 1,800,000 acres.

The Egyptian Sudan.-Egyptian cotton was cultivated in the Sudan to the extent of 21,788 acres in 1906 chiefly on nonirrigated land.

Northern Nigeria is the seat of a very large native cotton industry, to supply the demand for cotton robes for the Mahommedan races inhabiting the country.

Northern Nigeria contributes to the cotton exported from Lagos.

The profits obtained from ground-nuts (Arachis hypogea) in Gambia, gold mining in the Gold Coast, and from products of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) in the palm-oil belt serve to prevent much attention being given to cotton in these districts.

The cultivation of cotton on a commercial scale is quite new in Nyasaland, and although general conditions of soil and climate appear favourable the question of transport is serious and labour is not abundant.

In the lower river lands Egyptian cotton has been the most successful, whilst Upland cotton is more suited to the highlands.

Experimental work has been carried on, and in 1904 Uganda exported about 43 bales of cotton, and British East Africa about 177 bales.

In 1904-1905 there were some 300 acres under cotton in British East Africa.

Some of the native cottons are of fair quality, but Egyptian cotton appears likely to be best suited for growing for export.

For five centuries before the Christian era cotton was largely used in the domestic manufactures of India; and the clothing of the inhabitants then consisted, as now, chiefly of garments made from this vegetable product.

More than two thousand years before Europe or England had conceived the idea of applying modern industry to the manufacture of cotton, India had matured a system of hand-spinning, weaving and dyeing which during that vast period received no recorded improvement.

The people, though remarkable for their intelligence whilst Europe was in a state of barbarism, made no approximation to the mechanical operations of modern times, nor was the cultivation of cotton either improved or considerably extended.

Possessing soil, climate and apparently all the requisite elements from nature for the production of cotton to an almost boundless extent, and of a 1 Approximately.

Between the years 1788 and 1850 numerous attempts were made by the East India Company to improve the cultivation and to increase the supply of cotton in India, and botanists and American planters were engaged for the purpose.

Still more recently, however, experiments have been made to grow Egyptian cotton in Sind with the help of irrigation.

The area under cotton in all British India is about 20,000,000 acres, the crop being grown in a very primitive manner.

The bulk of the cotton is of very short staple, about three-quarters of an inch, and is not well suited to the requirements of the English spinner, but very large mills specially fitted to deal with short-stapled cottons have been erected in India and consume about one-half the total crop, the remainder being exported to Germany and other European countries, Japan and China.

In 1906 the United Kingdom took less than 5% of the cotton exported.

About 50% of the cotton produced is consumed in Indian mills and the remainder is exported.

Cotton has not been cultivated in China from such early times as in India, and although cotton cloths are mentioned in early writings it was not until about A.D.

During recent years a considerable quantity of cotton has been exported, but more than a compensating amount of raw cotton, yarns and textiles, is imported.

Korea is stated to have originally received its cotton plants from China some 500 years ago.

In the future Korea may become an important source of supply for Japan, especially if, as appears likely, Korea proves suited to the cultivation of American cotton.

Japan received cotton from India before China, and the plant is extensively grown, especially in West and Middle Japan.

The production is not sufficient to meet the home demand; during the five years of normal trade before the war with Russia Japan imported annually about 800,000 bales of cotton, chiefly from British India, China and the United States, and during the same period exported each year some 2000 bales, mainly to Korea.

In Java and other Dutch possessions in the East cotton is cultivated.

Some cotton is produced in European Russia in the southern Caucasus, but Turkestan in central Asia is by far the 1 Cotton Production 1906, U.S.A. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin No.

In this region cotton has been cultivated from very early times to supply local demands, and to a minor degree for export.

The Trans-Caspian railway has been an important factor; almost all the cotton exported passes over this line, and the statistics of this trade indicate the progress made.

The shipments increased from 250,978 bales in 1896-1897 to 495,96 2 bales in 1901-1902 - part, however, being Persian cotton.

The production of cotton in Russia in 1906 was estimated at 675,000 bales of Soo lb each.

About one-third of the cotton used in Russian mills is grown on Russian territory, the remainder coming chiefly from the United States.

A native variety known as " Terli," and American cotton, are grown.

According to the Liverpool Cotton Gazette, Asiatic Turkey produced in 1906 about ioo,000 bales, and Persia about 47,000 bales.

Cotton was formerly cultivated profitably in Palestine.

The quantity of cotton now produced in Australasia is extremely small.

Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia possess suitable climatic conditions, and in the first-named state the cotton has been grown on a commercial scale in past years, the crop in 1897 being about 450 bales.

Considerable interest attaches to the " Caravonica " cotton raised in South Australia, which has been experimented with in Australia, Ceylon and elsewhere.

It is probably a hybrid between Sea Island and rough Peruvian cotton, but lacks most of the essential features of Sea Island.

In Fiji the cotton exported in the 'sixties and 'seventies was worth £93,000 annually; but the cultivation has been practically abandoned.

During 1901-1903 there were no exports of cotton, and in 1904 only 70 bales were sent out.

Into the Society Islands Sea Island cotton was introduced about 1860-1870.

Hammond 1 has constructed a table from information supplied by the secretaries of the cotton exchanges at New York, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans and Galveston, showing the sales of " spot " cotton at those ports for the twenty-two years between 1874-1875 and 1895-1896, and in all cases an absolute decline is evident.

The receipts of cotton in the season 1904-1905 at the leading interior towns and ports of the United States are given below.

Moveable gins were tried for a time in some places; they were dragged by traction engines from farm to farm, like threshing machines in parts of England, but the plan proved uneconomical because, among other reasons, farmers were not prepared to meet the cost of providing facilities for storing their cotton.

The cotton is pressed locally and afterwards " compressed " into a very small compass.

In the latter, the cotton is arranged in the form of a rolled sheet or " lap."

Owing to complaints of the careless packing of American cotton, attention has been devoted of late to the improvement of the square bale.

A Manchester cotton-importing company was recently formed for increasing deliveries direct to Manchester, and establishing a " spot " market there, an end to which the Manchester Cotton Association had directed its efforts for some time past.

Spinning members preponderate, but almost all the Manchester cotton merchants and cotton brokers have also joined the association.

As most of the Lancashire cotton mills lie far from Manchester, direct importations to that city do not usually dispense with a " handling," and frequently save little or nothing in freight rates, though in some cases the economy derived from direct importation is considerable.

Fundamental alterations have been made in the structure of the leading cotton markets, and in methods of buying and selling cotton, in the last hundred years.

As men of substance increased among the ranks of the spinners, the Manchester cotton dealers found it impossible to retard a movement set on foot by the prospects of such appreciable advantages.

Ultimately many of the old Manchester cotton dealers became brokers for their old customers.

In 1875 there were said to be upwards of loo cotton dealers in Manchester, but from that time onward their members steadily declined.

It is interesting to observe that a later development of transport between Manchester and Liverpool, namely, the Manchester Cotton landed at the Port of Manchester since the Canal was opened.

About this time the broker of cotton only began to specialize from the ranks of the brokers who dealt in all kinds of colonial produce.

Previously there had not been enough business done in cotton to make it worth any person's while to devote himself to the buying and selling on commission of cotton only.

The evolution of the distinct business of cotton broking is readily comprehensible when we remind ourselves that the requirements, as regards raw material, of all spinners are much alike generally, and that no spinner could afford to pay an expert to devote himself entirely to purchasing cotton for his mill.

Spinners could easily run over to Liverpool and buy their cotton from the large stocks displayed at that port.

Ship Canal, has drawn back into Manchester a part of the cotton market which was attracted from Manchester into Liverpool by the famous improvement in transport opened to the public three-quarters of a century ago.

Originally cotton was imported by the Liverpool dealer as an agent for American firms or at his own risk, and then sold by private treaty, auction, or through brokers, to Cotton market methods.

The establishment of the Cotton Bank naturally followed.

Differences may be very large sums. The unit of a " future " being too bales, an alteration in the price of cotton of.

By 1884, however, the advantages of " settlement terms " became so evident that they were adopted by the Cotton Association, at first for fortnightly periods, with the saving clause originally that they should not be compulsory.

The importers, therefore, found it necessary to establish a club of their own, the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, which they as rigorously guarded against brokers.

The split in the market so caused was so damaging to both parties that a satisfactory arrangement was eventually agreed upon, and both institutions were absorbed in the Liverpool Cotton Association.

They must watch demand, be able to form reasonable anticipations of its move ments, and at the same time know the existing stocks of cotton, the sales taking place from day to day, and the best forecasts of the coming supplies.

A man accustomed to devote the whole of his time to the study of demand and supply in relation to cotton, after some years of experience, will be qualified ordinarily to form fairly accurate judgments of the prices to be expected.

Estimates are published of the area under cotton cultivation, and conditions of the American crop are issued by the American agricultural bureau at the beginning of the months of June, July, August, September and October of each year.

Ellison, in his work on the cotton trade of Great Britain, traces in detail the increase in the volume of information collected and made public. At the close of the 8th century there was a tacit understanding among brokers to supply one another with information.

Messrs Ewart and Rutson pioneered in 1805 by issuing a weekly account of the sales and imports of cotton, and three years later three such circulars were on the market, though Hope's alone was confined to cotton.

The issue of this circular by subscribing firms, on the basis of particulars collected by brokers appointed at a weekly meeting, gave rise in 1841 to the Cotton Brokers' Association, to which the development of the market by the systematizing of procedure is largely due.

Again we must distinguish between the " future " contracts for the delivery of a particular kind of cotton, which may be entered into by spinners and their brokers, and are real purchases in the sense that the spinners want delivery of the cotton referred to, and the "futures," which always relate 1 The Cotton Trade of Great Britain, by Thomas Ellison, p. 186.

The latter are not " real " purchases in the sense given to that term above, but fictitious because delivery of the cotton is not desired.

If he does not at once buy cotton, but quotes on the assumption that The price will remain steady, he may be involved in serious loss through his estimate being mistaken.

If he de termines to buy cotton at once, others who risk more, and trust their judgment of the future, may secure the contract.

On first thoughts it would seem desirable that all spinners should buy cotton outright to cover their contracts, but on second thoughts the social disadvantage of their doing so becomes apparent.

It is evident that the buying of cotton on the principles suggested would be calculated to cause great unsteadiness of prices, especially as cotton is not continuously forthcoming, but is produced periodically in harvests.

Demands for yarn cannot be expected to come always at the most favourable time socially for the distribution of the cotton.

The first is that spinners would be performing the two functions of industrial management and cotton buying (together with others perhaps), and that in consequence the best industrial men would not necessarily be able to maintain their position in the trade because as buyers of cotton they might be unfortunate.

The third, which is not distinct in principle from the two preceding, is that such limited speculation in cotton buying on the part of spinners worried with other matters would not be likely to steady the cotton market in any high degree.

It maybe assumed as desirable that the demand for cotton should be so spread as to keep its price as steady as possible - " steadiness " will be defined more exactly later - and that to this end it is essential that specialists should devote themselves to the task of spreading it.

Such specialists have appeared in the cotton brokers and dealers who make their living out of bearing the risks connected with anticipating demand and supply in relation to cotton.

To-day a spinner who is asked to quote for deliveries of yarn for, say, the next six months, may obtain from a broker quotations for deliveries of the cotton that he needs, in quantities as he needs it, for the next six months, and upon these quotations he may base his own for yarn.

If a spinner is pressed by a shipper to make quotations with refusal for two or three days to give time for business to be settled by cable, it is evidently not impossible for the spinner to shift the risk involved by getting in turn from his broker refusal quotations for cotton.

The means have been provided in the " futures " which circulate on the Cotton Exchange.

American cotton, we may remind the reader, is graded into a number of classes, both on the Liverpool and New York Ex changes, and an attempt is made in each market to keep the grades as fixed as possible.