GOSSYPIUM 



History 



THE COTTON PLANT 



Hairiness of 

 Leaves. 



History, 



KakM cotton, and relif/ioftuin were at first used to denote a red or Jcakhi coloured floss, 

 and the belief was accepted that all wools of that colour were obtained from 

 one and the same species. As opposed to that view it may be mentioned 

 that Fortune (Three Years' Wanderings in China, 1847, 264) says that the 

 mie wha or yellow cotton of China cannot be separated from the white form, 

 and that the seed may come up either white or yellow. [Cf. Liotard, Note, 

 Nanking Cotton in India, 1883.] As a matter of fact it would now appear 

 certain that most wild cottons have a red- coloured fuzz or even a red fuzz 

 and floss : accordingly, under negligent cultivation or as acclimatised 

 escapes from cultivation, the woolly coating of the seeds, in the majority 

 of species, may become reddish coloured. Conversely, red-coloured 

 cottons, if carefully cultivated, invariably lose their colour and become 

 white. Lastly, still other writers have sought for a classification based 

 on the shape and degree of hairiness of the leaves and bracteoles or the 

 shape and colour of the flowers. But, as with most other cultivated plants, 

 the classification of the forms of Gossi/pinm is alone possible on the 

 basis of the wild plants and through an aggregation of all natural character- 

 istics, including geographic and climatological considerations, and not 

 upon any arbitrary (single) standard. 



In this view it may now be desirable to furnish the practical results 

 of a special study of the genus Gosftypiiim (restricting attention as far 

 as may be possible to the Indian forms) and to draw up the history of the 

 available information regarding the cotton industry, with special reference 

 to the periods of discovery, the stages in cultivation, the improvement of 

 the plants of commerce, and the progression in industrial knowledge : 



/. THE HISTORY OF THE COTTON PLANT AND COTTON 

 INDUSTRIES. 



It would not be far from correct to describe cotton as the central feature of 

 the world's modern commerce. Certainly no more remarkable example of a 

 sudden development exists in the history of economic products than is the case 

 with cotton. The enormous importance of the textile to-day, in the agricultural, 

 commercial, industrial and social life of the world, renders it difficult to believe 

 that but little more than two hundred years ago cotton was practically unknown 

 to the civilised nations of the West. But it is perhaps even still more singular 

 that a fibre which, for many centuries apparently, had been a staple article of 

 clothing in India and the East generally, should scarcely find a place in the early 

 classical literature of these countries. Nearly all the beautiful and useful plants 

 of India have their properties extolled by the Sanskrit poets, and indeed are 

 frequently dedicated to the gods, but cotton the plant above all others which 

 might have been expected to have formed the theme of nature-worship is 

 hardly more than incidentally mentioned. 



The Sanskrit word kdrpdsd-i, often rendered cotton, is connected with the 

 Knowledge. Greek and Latin carpasos or carbasus, and denoted a fine textile. That name 

 was also known to the Phoenicians and Hebrews, but whether it originated 

 in India or was imported there would be hard to say. Mr. F. W. Thomas, 

 who has kindly permitted me to consult him on this point, ^informs me 

 that " the earliest mention appears to be in the Asvaldyana Srauta Si'itra 

 (say 800 B.C.), where the material is contrasted with silk and hemp, as that 

 of which was made the sacred thread of the Brahmans. Probably the word was 

 thus borrowed from India. The other words tula and picu are later they 

 denote the substance." " The Sanskrit dictionaries give four names (vadara, 

 kdrpdsi, tundikeri and samudrdntd) for the shrub, while the wild kind is called 

 bharadvdji. ' They also mention that kdrpdsa and vadara (the material) come 

 from the fruit of the plant in question, while the Harsacarita (circa 650 A.D.) 

 twice speaks of the cotton (tula) from the pods of the sdlmali tree " (= semul, 

 nontbax iintinimi'irHin). In the Institutes of Manu injunctions exist that 

 regulate the operations of the washermen and of the weavers, and these all 

 point to a social organisation and industrial attainment in which a knowledge 



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Indian 



