CHAPTEE n. 
HISTOET OF COTTON. 
Cotton was known to the ancients. Herodotus, 460 
B. c, speaks of the trees of India bearing fleeces more 
delicate and beautiful than those of sheep, and says that 
the Indians used them for making cloth. 
From India cotton was introduced into Greece and 
Rome , and the cloth used as tents by soldiers. Caesar 
covered the Forum with it, and the Sacred Way from his 
own house to the Capitoline Hill. 
PUny speaks of wool-bearing trees in Upper Egypt, 
bearing a fruit like a gourd, of the size of a quince, which, 
upon ripening and bursting, displayed a downy wool, from 
which costly fabrics were made resembling linen. 
At the beginning of the Christian era cotton had be- 
come an article of commerce, and the cotton fabrics of 
India were in great demand. 
Spain was the first of European countries to adopt the 
cotton culture. It was introduced there as early as the 
tenth century by the Moors. About the same time it was 
extended to Sicily. The Venetians engaged in it about 
the fourteenth century, and the Turks about the same time 
introduced it into Roumelia and Macedonia. 
The first notice of the English directing their attention 
