   #copyright

Cotton

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Plants

   Cotton ready for harvest. Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources
   Conservation Service.
   Enlarge
   Cotton ready for harvest. Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources
   Conservation Service.
   Picking cotton in Georgia (U.S. state)
   Enlarge
   Picking cotton in Georgia (U.S. state)

   Cotton is a soft fibre that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant
   (Gossypium spp.), a shrub native to the tropical and subtropical
   regions of Africa and the Americas. The fibre is most often spun into
   thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, which is the most
   widely used natural-fiber cloth in clothing today. The English name
   descends from the Arabic word "al qutun", (hence also came the Spanish
   word "algodón") meaning cotton fibre. Africa and South America are
   large providers of cotton.

   Cotton fibre (once processed to remove seeds and traces of wax,
   protein, etc.) consists of nearly pure cellulose, a natural polymer.
   Cotton production is very efficient, in the sense that, ten percent or
   less of the weight is lost in subsequent processing to convert the raw
   cotton bolls into pure fibre. The cellulose is arranged in a way that
   gives cotton fibers a high degree of strength, durability, and
   absorbency. Each fibre is made up of twenty to thirty layers of
   cellulose coiled in a neat series of natural springs. When the cotton
   boll (seed case) is opened the fibres dry into flat, twisted,
   ribbon-like shapes and become kinked together and interlocked. This
   interlocked form is ideal for spinning into a fine yarn.

Cultivation

   Harvested cotton in Tennessee (2005)
   Enlarge
   Harvested cotton in Tennessee (2005)

   Successful cultivation of cotton requires a long growing season, plenty
   of sunshine and water during the period of growth, and dry weather for
   harvest. In general, these conditions are met within tropical and warm
   subtropical latitudes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
   Production of the crop for a given year usually starts soon after
   harvesting the preceding autumn. Planting time in spring varies from
   the beginning of February to the beginning of June.

Cotton plant

   Cotton fibre originates from the cotton plant, an important crop in
   tropical climates and warm temperate climates. Commercial species of
   cotton plant are Gossypium hirsutum (U.S.A. and Australia), G.
   arboreum, G. herbaceum (Asia), and G. barbadense (Egypt).

History

   Cotton plant as imagined and drawn by John Mandeville in the 14th
   century
   Enlarge
   Cotton plant as imagined and drawn by John Mandeville in the 14th
   century

   Cotton has been used to make very fine lightweight cloth in areas with
   tropical climates for millennia. Evidence has been found of cotton in
   Mexican caves (cotton cloth and fragments of bloody fibre interwoven
   with feathers and fur) which dated back to approximately 7,000 years
   ago. There is clear archaeological evidence that people in India and
   South America domesticated different species of cotton independently
   thousands of years ago.

   Cotton cultivation in the Old World began from India, where cotton has
   been grown for more than 6,000 years, since the pre-Harappan period.
   Cotton from the Harappan civilization was exported to Mesopotamia
   during the 3rd millenium BC, and cotton was soon known to the Egyptians
   as well. The Rig Veda, composed from around the 15th century BC,
   contains numerous references to cotton. The famous Greek historian
   Herodotus also wrote about Indian cotton: "There are trees which grow
   wild there, the fruit of which is a wool exceeding in beauty and
   goodness that of sheep. The Indians make their clothes of this tree
   wool." (Book III. 106)

   In Peru, cotton was the backbone of the development of coastal cultures
   such as the Moche and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets
   and traded with fishing villages along the coast for large supplies of
   fish. The Spanish who came to Mexico in the early 1500s found the
   peoples there wearing cotton clothing and growing it.

   During the late mediaeval period, cotton became known as an imported
   fibre in northern Europe, without any knowledge of what it came from
   other than that it was a plant; noting its similarities to wool, people
   in the region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by
   plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact the
   now-preposterous belief: "There grew there India a wonderful tree which
   bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so
   pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are
   hungrie." This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in many
   European languages, such as German Baumwolle, which translates as "tree
   wool". By the end of the 16th century, cotton was cultivated throughout
   the warmer regions in Asia and the Americas.
   Picking cotton in Oklahoma in the 1890s
   Enlarge
   Picking cotton in Oklahoma in the 1890s

   India's cotton-processing sector gradually declined during British
   expansion in India and the establishment of colonial rule during the
   late 18th and early 19th centuries. This was largely due to the East
   India Company's de-industrialization of India, which forced the closing
   of cotton processing and manufacturing workshops in India, to ensure
   that Indian markets supplied only raw materials and were obliged to
   purchase manufactured textiles from Britain.

   The advent of the Industrial Revolution in Britain provided a great
   boost to cotton manufacture, as textiles emerged as Britain's leading
   export. The invention of the spinning jenny in 1764 and Richard
   Arkwright's spinning frame in 1769 enabled British weavers to produce
   cotton yarn and cloth at much higher rates. The UK city of Manchester
   even became known as Cottonopolis because of its pre-eminance as a
   world centre of cotton-spinning. Production capacity was further
   improved by the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793.
   Improving technology and increasing control of world markets allowed
   British traders to develop a commercial chain in which raw cotton
   fibres were (at first) purchased from colonial plantations, processed
   into cotton cloth in the mills of Lancashire, and then re-exported on
   British ships to captive colonial markets in West Africa, India, and
   China (via Shanghai and Hong Kong).

   By the 1840s, India was no longer capable of supplying the vast
   quantities of cotton fibres needed by mechanised British factories,
   while shipping bulky, low-price cotton from India to Britain was
   time-consuming and expensive. This, coupled with the emergence of
   American cotton as a superior type (due to the stronger fibres of
   American plants) encouraged British traders to purchase cotton from
   slave plantations in the United States and the Caribbean. Due to the
   enormous quantities of raw cotton required to make cheap bulk exports,
   British industrialists quickly abandoned expensive raw cotton produced
   in India in favour of mass-produced cotton from the southern United
   States, which was much cheaper as it was produced by unpaid slaves. By
   the mid 19th century, " King Cotton" had become the backbone of the
   southern American economy. In the United States, cultivating and
   harvesting cotton became the leading occupation of slaves.

   During the American Civil War, American cotton exports slumped due to a
   Union blockade on Southern ports, prompting the main purchasers of
   cotton, Britain and France, to turn to Egyptian cotton. British and
   French traders invested heavily in cotton plantations and the Egyptian
   government of Viceroy Isma'il took out substantial loans from European
   bankers and stock exchanges. After the American Civil War ended in
   1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and returned
   to cheap American exports, sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led
   to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind
   Egypt's annexation by the British Empire in 1882.

   During this time cotton cultivation in British Empire , especially
   India, greatly increased to replace the lost production of the American
   South which had been the main supplier to the English mills. Through
   tariffs and other restrictions the English government discouraged the
   production of cotton cloth in India; rather the raw fibre was sent to
   England for processing. The Indian patriot Gandhi described the
   process:

          1. You English buy Indian cotton in the field, picked by Indian
          labor at seven cents a day, through an optional monopoly.
          2. This cotton is shipped on British bottoms, a three weeks
          journey across the Indian Ocean, down the Red Sea, across the
          Mediterranean, through Gibraltar, across the Bay of Biscay and
          the Atlantic Ocean to London. One hundred per cent profit on
          this freight is regarded as small.
          3. The cotton is turned into cloth in Lancashire. You pay
          shilling wages instead of Indian pennies to your workers. The
          English worker not only has the advantage of better wages, but
          the steel companies of England get the profit of building the
          factories and machines. Wages; profits; all these are spent in
          England.
          4. The finished product is sent back to India at European
          shipping rates, once again on British ships. The captains,
          officers, sailors of these ships, whose wages must be paid, are
          English. The only Indians who profit are a few lascars who do
          the dirty work on the boats for a few cents a day.
          5 The cloth is finally sold back to the kings and landlords of
          India who got the money to buy this expensive cloth out of the
          poor peasants of India who worked at seven cents a day. (Fisher
          1932 pp 154-156)

   In the United States, cotton remained a key crop in the southern
   economy after emancipation and the end of the civil war in 1865. Across
   the south, sharecropping evolved, in which free black farmers worked on
   white-owned cotton plantations in return for a share of the profits
   (although in reality, the system was little changed from the days of
   slavery). Cotton plantations required vast labour forces to hand-pick
   cotton fibres, and it was not until the 1950s that reliable harvesting
   machinery was introduced into the South (prior to this,
   cotton-harvesting machinery had been too clumsy to pick cotton without
   shredding the fibres). During the early twentieth century, employment
   in the cotton industry fell as machines began to replace labourers, and
   as the South's rural labour force dwindled during the First and Second
   World Wars. Today, cotton remains a major export of the southern United
   States, and a majority of the world's annual cotton crop is of the
   long-staple American variety.

   The cotton industry relies heavily on chemicals such as fertilizers and
   insecticides, although a very small number of farmers are moving
   towards an organic model of production and organic cotton products are
   now available for purchase at limited locations.
   Hoeing a cotton field to remove weeds, Greene County, Georgia, USA,
   1941
   Enlarge
   Hoeing a cotton field to remove weeds, Greene County, Georgia, USA,
   1941

   Historically, in North America, one of the most economically
   destructive pests in cotton production has been the boll weevil. Due to
   the US Department of Agriculture's highly successful Boll Weevil
   Eradication Program (BWEP), this pest has been eliminated from cotton
   in most of the United States. This program, along with the introduction
   of genetically engineered " Bt cotton" containing a bacteria gene that
   codes for a plant-produced protein that is toxic to a number of pests
   such as tobacco budworm, cotton bollworm and pink bollworm, has allowed
   a reduction in the use of synthetic insecticides.
   Offloading freshly harvested cotton into a module builder in Texas.
   Previously built modules may be seen in the background.
   Enlarge
   Offloading freshly harvested cotton into a module builder in Texas.
   Previously built modules may be seen in the background.

   Most cotton in the United States, Europe and Australia is harvested
   mechanically, either by a cotton picker, a machine that removes the
   cotton from the boll without damaging the cotton plant, or by a cotton
   stripper which strips the entire boll off the plant. Cotton strippers
   are generally used in regions where it is too windy to grow picker
   varieties of cotton and generally used after application of a defoliant
   or natural defoliation occurring after a freeze. Cotton is a perennial
   crop in the tropics and without defoliation or freezing, the plant will
   continue to grow.

   The logistics of cotton harvesting and processing have been improved by
   the development of the cotton module builder, a machine that compresses
   harvested cotton into a large block, which is then covered with a tarp
   and temporarily stored at the edge of the field.

Research and promotion

   Beginning as a self-help program in the mid-1960s, the Cotton Research
   & Promotion Program was organized by U.S. Upland cotton producers in
   response to cotton's steady decline in market share. At that time,
   producers voted to set up a per-bale assessment system to fund the
   Program with built-in safeguards to protect their investments. With the
   passage of the Cotton Research & Promotion Act of 1966, the Program
   joined forces and began battling synthetic competitors and
   re-establishing markets for cotton. Today, the success of this Program
   has made cotton the best selling fibre in the U.S. and one of the best
   selling fibers in the world.

   Administered by the Cotton Board and conducted by Cotton Incorporated,
   the Cotton Research & Promotion Program is the program that is
   continuously working to increase the demand for and profitability of
   cotton through various research and promotion activities. The Program
   is funded by U.S. cotton producers and importers.

Uses

   Cotton bath towels
   Enlarge
   Cotton bath towels

   Cotton is used to make a number of textile products. These include
   terrycloth, used to make highly absorbent bath towels and robes, denim,
   used to make blue jeans, chambray, popularly used in the manufacture of
   blue work shirts (from which we get the term " blue-collar"), along
   with corduroy, seersucker, and cotton twill. Socks, underwear, and most
   T-shirts are made from cotton. Bed sheets are also often made from
   cotton. Cotton is also used to make yarn used in crochet and knitting.
   Fabric can also be made from recycled or recovered cotton that would
   otherwise be thrown away during the spinning, weaving or cutting
   process. While many fabrics are made completely of cotton, some
   materials blend cotton with other fibers, including rayon and synthetic
   fibers such as polyester.

   In addition to the textile industry, cotton is used in fishnets, coffee
   filters, tents and in bookbinding. The first Chinese paper was made of
   cotton fibre, as is the modern US dollar bill and federal stationery.
   Fire hoses were once made of cotton.

   The cottonseed which remains after the cotton is ginned is used to
   produce cottonseed oil, which after refining can be consumed by humans
   like any other vegetable oil. The cottonseed meal that is left is
   generally fed to livestock. In the past, cotton seeds were used by
   women as an abortifacient.

   Cotton linters are fine, silky fibers which adhere to the seeds of the
   cotton plant after ginning. These curly fibers are typically less than
   1/8in, 3mm long. The term may also apply to the longer textile fibre
   staple lint as well as the short fuzzy fibers from some upland species.
   Linters are traditionally used in the manufacture of paper and as a raw
   material in the manufacture of cellulose.

Pests

   The greatest ecological threat to cotton plants is the boll weevil.
   During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, boll
   weevil infestations caused significant damage to annual cotton crops in
   the southern United States, resulting in frequent economic depressions
   in rural areas.

Fair trade

   Cotton is an enormously important commodity throughout the world.
   However, many farmers in developing countries receive a low price for
   their produce, or find it difficult to compete with developed
   countries.

   This has led to an international dispute:

     On 27 September 2002 Brazil requested consultations with the US
     regarding prohibited and actionable subsidies provided to US
     producers, users and/or exporters of upland cotton, as well as
     legislation, regulations, statutory instruments and amendments
     thereto providing such subsidies (including export credits), grants,
     and any other assistance to the US producers, users and exporters of
     upland cotton.

   On 8 September 2004, the Panel Report recommended that the United
   States "withdraw" export credit guarantees and payments to domestic
   user and exporters, and "take appropriate steps to remove the adverse
   effects or withdraw" the mandatory price-contingent subsidy measures.
   The international production and trade situation has led to ' fair
   trade' cotton clothing or footwear ( Veja Sneakers) being available in
   some countries. The fair trade system was initiated in 2005 with
   producers from Cameroon, Mali and Senegal.

Critical Temperatures

     * Favorable travel temperature range - no lower limit =< 77°F (25°C)
     * Optimum travel temperature - 68°F (20°C)
     * Autoignition temperature (for oily cotton) - 248°F (120°C)
     * Glow temperature - 401°F (205°C)
     * Fire point - 410°F (210°C)
     * Autoignition temperature - 765°F (407°C)

   Cotton dries out, becomes hard and brittle and loses all elasticity at
   temperatures above 25°C. Extended exposure to light causes similar
   problems.

   A temperature range of 25°C to 35°C is the optimal range for mold
   development. At temperatures below 0°C, rotting of wet cotton stops.
   Damaged cotton is sometimes stored at these temperatures to prevent
   further deterioration.

Old British cotton yarn measures

     * 1 thread = 54 inches (about 137 cm)
     * 1 skein or rap = 80 threads (120 yards or about 109 m)
     * 1 hank = 7 skeins (840 yards or about 768 m)
     * 1 spindle = 18 hanks (15,120 yards or about 13,826 m)

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
