When was cotton first discovered

It grows in a boll around the seeds of the plant. The fiber of cotton is almost pure cellulose. Several civilizations in both the Old and New World stated using cotton for making fabrics, independently of each other.

Cotton was used in the Old World from at least BC. Evidence of cotton use has been found at the site of Mehrgarh, on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan, where early cotton threads have been preserved in copper beads. Evidence of cotton was also found in Peru in the form of seeds and cordage dating to about BC. Herodotus mentions Indian cotton in the 5th century BC. Troops of Alexander the Great that invaded India started wearing cotton clothes because they were more comfortable comparing to their woolen ones.

In the 8th century the Muslim conquest of Spain brings cotton to the rest of the Europe. Cotton was first spun by machinery in England in The industrial revolution in England and the invention of the cotton gin in the U. The gin, short for engine, could do the work 10 times faster than by hand.

The gin made it possible to supply large quantities of cotton fiber to the fast-growing textile industry. Within 10 years, the value of the U. Cotton comes from the puffy, cotton fluff of seed pods that grow on plants that are a members of the mallow family. Cotton is ideal fore making thread and cloth because the flattened, twisted fibers that come from the seed pods interlock and bond when spun into string threads. On the third day the petals fall off leaving behind undeveloped, flattened green pods called boll.

The boll takes about 45 to 60 days to mature into an egg-shaped pod about an inch in diameters and an inch and a half long. Inside of each mature pod are three to five cotton-filled compartments call "locks. Cotton needs lots of sun, a long hot summer and a fair amount of water to grow. It does well in dry climates and rich soils but does not do well in a climates that are too cold or too wet and requires 20 tons of water per day per acre about the same amount of water as wheat and needs a growing season of frost-free days.

Cotton depletes nutrients in the soil quickly and is often rotated with other crops. Because it needs a lot of sun and water it is often grown in hot, dry places with water supplied by irrigation.

The average yield is around pounds of cotton per acre. Cotton-growing methods vary from region to region. In many developing countries the work is still done mainly by hand. The fields are plowed with horse or mules or some other animal and seeds are usually planted in rows at a depth of about one or two inches deep.

In the developed world, cotton is grown in vast fields and is mechanically planted, cultivated and harvested. Fields are sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides with helicopters and planes.

Cotton pickers in the American South Cotton plants are weak. They are usually planted close together as a means of support. After the plants are stronger and reach a height of ten centimeters they "chopped" to clear away weeds and excess plants.

Some field have to "chopped" seven or times before the harvest. With cotton there is a strong risk of loss due to pest such as the boll weevil. Cotton has traditionally been grown with lots off fertilizers, pesticides and even defoliates power Agent-Orange-like chemical that get rid of leaves and make it easier to pick cotton.

Many of the problems that developed from DDT in the s and 60s resulted from spraying huge amounts of it by plane on cotton crops. Cotton is still picked by hand in many parts of the world. One reason for this is so the plants can be harvested several times as the bolls mature at different rates. Bolls on a single plant often ripen at different times. To speed up the ripening process sometimes farmers use chemical that defoliate the plant.

At harvest time the cotton plants are usually three to four feet high. Pickers wander through the fields with bags and pick the cotton either by "hand snapping" the entire boll, yielding cotton along with the husk and other stuff, or plucking the cotton from the boll.

Skilled pickers can pick between and pounds of cotton a day. It is backbreaking work often done for little money. At the end of the day the hands of pickers are covered in cuts and scratches.

Mechanical harvesting is done by two machines: a picker which pulls the bolls from the plant and stripper that slices the bolls and many of the leaves from the stalk. These insects caused a great amount of destruction in the United States, arriving in Texas in , spreading across much the American South by and devastated that area until it the s when it began to be successfully brought under control with insecticides such as DDT. Our farmer can combat the cotton worm but are at loss to know what to do to overcome this pest.

But most destructively, the female drills deep inside the bolls and squares and deposits eggs. By the time they are finished a cotton field can be as much as 80 percent destroyed.

Using these tools it is hoped that the boll weevil will be eradicated completely from the United States by The boll weevil remains a threat in Mexico and Central America and is making advances in South America..

The cotton leafworm is another cotton pest that comes from the Veracruz area of Mexico. Modern mills are clean and have quiet machines. Some "virtually run themselves. The first thing that is done after the cotton is harvested is the separation of the seeds from the cotton with a cotton gin consisting of hooked-tooth saws that tear the fibers from the seeds.

Modern gins also remove moisture, impurities and dust from the fibers. Afterwards, the free fibers, called lint, are sucked away into a collection area. The seeds are saved to use for next year's crop or crushed to make oil for margarine, cooking oil or cosmetics. The cottons fibers are pressed into bales weighing around pounds. Carding machines, cylinders with wire points, straightens the fibers and mold them into finger-thick, ropelike strands called slivers.

Drawing frames draw out several slivers at one time and combine them into single strands. Riving machines then twists and further draw out the cotton into a thinner strand.

Spinning machine then draw and twist the strands into yarns of desired sizes and widens them on bobbins for weaving. Yarns of cotton are woven together on looms with warps lengthwise yarns on rollers.

Every other warp thread is lifted all at once while a shuttle drives wefts crosswise yarn under the even warp threads and over the odd ones. Rollers shift so that the weft carried by the shuttle on the return journey goes over the even warp threads and under the odd ones. The shuttle can make or more trips a minute. Afterwards the unfinished "gray goods" fabric is taken to a converter for final processing.

This includes bleaching, dying, preshrinking and printing the fabric. The fabric can be combed into denim and given a finishing of crepe, glazed chintze or water resistance.