CHAPTER XIV 



COTTON — STRUCTURE AND GENERAL 

 . CHARACTERISTICS 



Cotton is the world's most important fiber plant. The 

 cotton plant as generally grown in the United States is 

 of erect or bushy form and usually three to seven feet tall. 

 In this country it is an annual, being killed by frost in the 

 fall. In its native home in the tropics the cotton plant is 

 a perennial, living for many years. Suggestions of this 

 perennial habit are afforded after a mild winter in, the 

 southern part of the cotton-belt by the sprouting of plants 

 from the old root or stem. 



229. Stems and branches. — The cotton plant consists 

 of an erect central stem, usually three to six feet long, from 

 the nodes of which branches arise. Stems and branches 

 are woody and solid. The length and arrangement of 

 branches are important as means of distinguishing varieties 

 and as indications of productiveness and earliness. 



The longest limbs of cotton are usually near the base of 

 the plant, the length decreasing towards the top of the 

 main stem. This gives to cotton plants of most varieties 

 a cone-shaped, pyramidal, or sugar-loaf form. However, 

 in varieties, known as " cluster cottons," there are a few 

 long limbs near the base of the plant; all branches above 

 these basal limbs are only a few inches long, thus giving a 

 slender or " erect " appearance to the upper two thirds of 



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