Three textile raw materials and their manufacture

Besides yielding a natural wool from which a tremendous number of products are derived, the seed of the plant gives forth a highly useful vegetable oil, and the stems and leaves are used for fodder.

The origin of the cultivation and commercial use of cotton is shrouded in the dim veils of antiquity. The records of India show that the plant was grown, and its fibre utilized, from the earliest times. The Phoenicians and the Hebrews are known to have made cotton clothing, and later the art was transmitted by them to the Greeks and Romans. The vague annals of China indicate a familiarity with this plant and its value extending back to the remote past, and the same is true of Japan. Cortez found a flourishing textile industry among the Aztecs in 1519, and in Peru, Pizarro found cotton garments said to antedate the civilization of the Incas. Again early Portuguese chroniclers relate the discovery of native cotton in Brazil.

The Arabs and Saracens were largely responsible for the introduction of the textile industries to western Europe in the ninth century, but it was not until about the middle of the seventeenth century that any great progress was made. During this time the British began to attempt the cultivation of cotton in their colonies, and it was about 1650 when the first Virginia plantations were begun. Since that time the United States has forged ahead until at present it grows over three-fifths of the world’s crop.

The cultivation of cotton in Egypt was begun about 1821, American Sea Island seeds being imported at that time. The fertile alluvial soil of the Nile delta was found particularly adapted to this use, and extensive irrigation later expanded the area. The construction of the Great Assouan Dam late in the nineteenth century gave a tremendous impetus to the industry. Egyptian cotton is mostly of the long staple variety, the best, known as Sakellarides, averaging an inch and three-quarters.

Cotton culture in India is perhaps the oldest of all, but Indian cotton is of the short staple variety, and can only be used by certain manufacturers most of which are located in Japan and Germany. About twenty-five million acres are said to be under cultivation, but statistics are very meagre.

China has long been a large grower of cotton, but the native species are of a harsh, short fibre. Korea and the Yangtze and Wei basins are the chief sources, and American cotton has recently been introduced in the southern provinces.

Russia began to raise American cotton on a large scale in Turkestan only some twenty years ago, and bids fair to become a large producer. The plant is indigenous to almost all the Central and South American countries, and particularly in Mexico, Brazil and Peru, it has great potentialities. Peru has two kinds of native cotton known as the rough and smooth varieties. The former is of a very long and tough fibre and is valuable because it can be blended with wool.

The greatest part of the American crop consists of the Upland variety, although, as we have noted, there is a small but important crop of Sea Island in the Southern Atlantic states. Another long staple species, known as Pimas, has recently been introduced in Arizona, and the alluvial soil of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana has produced still other desirable species, locally known as “Rivers,” “Peelers,” and “Benders.” Before we consider the relative manufacturing merits of the various kinds of cotton, it would perhaps be well to consider briefly how the crop is grown.

The cotton season of course varies in different latitudes, but the planting is done everywhere in the early spring months. The proper care and fertilization of the soil and its preparation to receive the seed is of the utmost importance. The plant ripens in about four months, so that the picking season in this country usually begins in August, and continues until the first killing frost. From the time of the opening of the first bolls the cotton continues to grow, unless killed by drought or insects, until the cold puts a stop to vegetation, and the same stalk frequently contains ripe and immature cotton at the same time. The cotton which matures first and has been least exposed to weather when picked is likely to be freer of spots and discolorations than that which is picked at the end of the season.

The two great enemies of the cotton plant are drought and insect depredations. Late frosts and the right quantity of rain and sunshine are what every cotton planter prays for, and praying is about all he can do in this respect. Not so, however, with insects. Unfortunately there are a great number of rapacious little creatures rendered particularly hardy by some caprice of Nature, to whom the growing cotton plant represents an especial delicacy. Against them the planters, under the guidance of the Department of Agriculture, are waging continuous warfare. It is said that insect depredation, at pre-war prices cost the country an annual sum of $60,000,000, more than half of which is attributable to the two worst offenders, the boll weevil and the boll worm. Coming in hordes across the Mexican border, the boll weevil has destroyed millions of bales of cotton annually, and as yet no very effective remedy has been found to exterminate it.

Even at that, however, the planter’s greatest worry is perhaps not so much the growth as the harvesting of his crop. To get his cotton picked rapidly and properly, an operation for which no successful machinery has yet been devised, and to have it properly ginned, presents his chief problem. If cotton is left too long on the stem it will be exposed to the detrimental effects of the weather. Coloring matter from the newly opened bolls, or from the soil, is washed into the floss by the rain, and while such spots or stains may be bleached out by the sun, the lustrous bloom never returns. Frost will make permanent tinges or stains, and the wind will frequently wrap the pendulous locks of fibre-covered seed about the stems of the plant or tangle them up in the leaves.

When the pickers do not exercise proper care stem and leaves frequently get picked along with cotton, and a considerable quantity of dirt inevitably finds its way into their bags. Or else the cotton may be picked when it is damp, with the result that the teeth of the gin, instead of picking out the seeds and stems will cut the matted fibres, producing a class of cotton known as “Gin-cut”. Moreover the gin brushes will be unable to separate the matted tufts, and so they go into the bale as “naps” or “neps”. All these factors militate against the planter in his efforts to have his crop classified as high as possible.

The classification of cotton into the standard grades fixed by the Government constitutes an exceedingly difficult art. There is absolutely no mechanical basis, and the classification is a purely relative one. The kind of plant has no bearing whatsoever, nor has the length or strength of staple. It is really a distinction based upon the condition of the cotton, rather than upon its inherent attributes.

The grade “MIDDLING” is the basis upon which the market values of the other grades are quoted. There are eight full grades:

Between these full grades are the half grades, known as the Stricts, and some classers use quarter grades with which, however, we shall not concern ourselves here. The grades and half-grades are quoted for whites, tinges, and stains. A stain is a heavy discoloration while a tinge is a lighter hue, and partial discolorations, known as spots, are permissible in the lower grades of whites. The values of the various grades are always quoted as so many points on or off White Middling, a point being 1/100th. of a cent. Thus, if Middling White were quoted at 24c and Ordinary as 300 points off, it would mean that Ordinary was worth 21c. An example is given below of a regular quotation sheet.

U. S. GRADES [1]WHITE [2]TINGES [2]STAINS

Middling Fair 403 on Nominal Nominal Strict Good Middling 328 on 49 off a Nominal Good Middling 253 on 152 off a 447 off a Strict Middling 135 on 300 off a 618 off a Middling Basis 456 off a 809 off a St. Low Middling 305 off 704 off a Nominal Low Middling 843 off 1064 off a Nominal Strict Good Ordinary 1230 off Nominal Nominal Good Ordinary 1518 off Nominal Nominal

[1] U. S. Government differences.

[2] Average of differences on New York, New Orleans, Memphis and either the Savannah or the Augusta exchanges.

It is obvious that in this classification the human element plays a great part. The difference between quarter grades, or even half grades, or between a tinge and a stain, are subject to a great variety of interpretations. While there is no definite standard, Middling must be cream or white, must show no soil evidence, no gin-cuts or naps, may have a few pieces of leaf (not powdered), and a few motes, (immature seeds). As the grades go up the cotton must be freer of impurities until the top grades have to show practically a perfect lustrous, silky, white, and clear fibre. On the lower side the impurities increase, until, in the Ordinaries, we find large and small leaf particles, sticks, hulls, dirt, sand naps, gin-cuts, and spots, together with a dingy color.

[Sidenote: _Some Cottons not Sold on Middling Basis_]

It is this classification that governs the trading on all the exchanges, and upon which the planter originally sells his crop. The exceptions are those varieties of cotton which are distinct from the crop as a whole. Sea Islands are sold as Fancy, Choice, Fine, Medium, and Common. Bolly or immature cotton is sold by separate agreements; and Linters, the fibres regained by the seed mills from reginning the seed, are not sold on this basis. Neither is what is known as the “City Crop” of loose cotton accumulated from taking samples, sold in this way.