50 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Maturity. 



Ripening 

 with 



increasing 

 tempera- 

 ture. 



Pulling 



cotton. 



Length. 



Strength. 



Standards 

 under- 

 stood. 



Cotton 

 Futures. 



gathered in the green state and ripened in the collector's house, 

 the pods being artificially broken open and the floss pulled out by 

 hand, at the convenience of the owner. These are doubtless extreme 

 examples, but are representative of well-known conditions of maturity. 

 So again the cottons of certain countries, or the crops of certain 

 seasons, that mature their staples with the damps and colds of the 

 approaching autumn, are necessarily different from flosses matured 

 in spring with the increasing heat and dryness of the approaching 

 summer. The North American cottons arrive in Liverpool about 

 the end of September or beginning of October, the Egyptian and 

 South American nearly a month later, but the bulk of the Indian 

 cottons do not reach Europe much before March. 



The expert judges the value of cotton by certain tests, the 

 value of which can only be ascertained by long technical training. 

 A tuft of the floss is taken up and held firmly between the forefinger 

 and thumb of each hand, then pulled apart. The two portions are 

 next placed on the top of each other and the 'pulling' repeated 

 until a clean sample has been prepared, all the threads of which 

 lie parallel to each other. This exhibits the mean length of the 

 sample. It is customary for the brokers to lay each tuft of floss, as 

 prepared, on the sleeve of the left arm and to make several such 

 from the different parts of each parcel, the series being then compared 

 as to uniformity in length and other properties. 



But while ' pulling ' asunder, the degree of resistance is noted 

 an exceedingly delicate test that only long experience can acquire 

 by which some conception of the degree of twisting in the individual 

 cells is ascertained. Lastly, the strength of the staple is deter- 

 mined by taking up one of the drawn samples, and holding it 

 firmly between the forefinger and thumb of each hand, a sudden 

 sharp strain or jerk being then given, by which the expert judges of 

 the strength of the staple. 



These and such-like are the hand and eye tests by which 

 the bulk of the cotton is bought and sold to-day, but though to the 

 uninitiated it seems a jargon of meaningless tests and terms, 

 the transactions are satisfactorily accomplished and the standards 

 readily understood by the experts of the cotton world. 



Contracts. It would be beyond the scope of this work to discuss 

 the forms of transactions. It may suffice to observe that ' Cotton 

 Futures ' are contracts at certain dates on prices previously agreed 

 upon. This gives the spinner assurance to accept orders for yarn. 



