NATURE’S IDEA OF COTTON 
around these seeds and twist it into threads to weave into 
cloth. He had already learned to make cloth of wool. 
Because he was familiar with this product from the 
sheep’s back, he called the new fiber “ tree wool.” 
Cotton, as it is cultivated today, does not grow on 
trees, but in the tropics it still flourishes in the native 
state. Even today, high up in the Andes, one may come 
upon a tree in the autumn forest that looks as though it 
were a mass of snow. It is a cotton tree, and its seeds are 
just maturing. These trees do not die down in the fall 
of the year, as does the cotton of the cultivated field, but 
live on through the decades, as a plum tree might. 
When the seeds of the cotton tree were brought to the 
North and planted, the young sprouts grew rapidly, blos¬ 
somed, and made seed in a single summer. When the 
frost came, it blighted and killed this child of the tropics. 
So it came to pass that cotton was planted in the spring 
and harvested in the autumn. Few people realize that as 
an annual this plant is living a most unnatural life. 
Cotton was really not an important material for use in 
clothing mankind until the cotton gin was invented 150 
years ago to separate the fiber from the seed. This made 
cotton available in bulk. The spinning industry grew 
rapidly. The southern states of this country produced 
cotton to meet the demand and thereby enriched them¬ 
selves. How different would have been their history if 
the old-time cotton tree had not hit upon this peculiar 
plan for getting its seeds scattered about. 
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