CHAPTER VII 

 COTTON 



COTTON is supposed to have been a native of India, 

 though Columbus found it growing here when he came 

 to America. Cotton ranks next in value in the United States 

 after the cereals and the forage crops. In many of the 

 southern states it outranks all other crops put together both 

 in acreage and value. The annual crop is worth about 

 three-fourths of a billion dollars. 



The cotton plant is raised chiefly for its fiber, though 

 other parts of the plant are also useful. The seed furnishes 

 valuable oils for lighting, cooking and other purposes. 

 The hulls and meal left from the manufacture of the oils 

 are used for stock feeding and fertilizers. The root barks 

 are sometimes used for medicine while the stalk fiber is 

 employed for the manufacture of coarse cloth bags. Some 

 paper manufacturers are also using the stalk. 



1. The Cotton Region 



Most of our cotton is raised in the following twelve 

 southern states, which are named in the order of the amount 

 of cotton they produce: Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, 

 Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, 

 Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri. Cotton is also 

 profitably raised in southern Virginia and in parts of Ken- 

 tucky. It has recently been introduced with success in 

 Arizona, southern Utah, New Mexico, and in southern 

 California, where the long staple variety is especially suc- 

 cessful. 



107 



