314 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



stamens, all grown together by the fleshiness of 

 their filaments that form a cylinder enclosing the 

 pistils. The abutilon, or flowering maple, grown 

 indoors, illustrates well this mallow type of flower. 

 The fruit is a pod, with several compartments 

 containing seeds. In the cotton plant, the seeds 

 are provided with long hairs, as a milkweed seed is. 

 Nature evidently intended these hairs to aid in 

 scattering the seed. The pod bursts open when 

 ripe, and the hairy mass is pushed out by its own 

 expansion. The seeds go wherever the "wool" 

 goes. 



In growing cotton, the planting day waits until 

 danger of frost is about past, and yet the planter 

 must beware the early fall frosts that might get 

 his cotton at the other end of the season. Six 

 months of growing weather, warm, with showers 

 enough and plenty of sunshine, the cotton plant 

 requires to do its best. 



The seed is put into the ground, in a continuous 

 row, like peas, though single plants two feet apart 

 is the ideal "stand" on good land. The little 

 plants come up slowly, and pretty feeble they are, 

 crowding each other for standing room. When 

 they are a few inches high the strongest begin to 

 assert themselves, and the "choppers" come in 

 with hoes to thin the plants, and destroy, with 



