

NATURAL HISTORY. 221 
a. 
COTTON PLANT. 
‘Lue fruit of this plant is the cotton which is fo 
_ much ufed as eevtalerial of manufactures chiefly made 
_ at Manchefter. its plant bears a ftalk about eight 
feet high, covered with a reddifh hairy bark, divided 
into feveral fhort branches. The leaves are rather 
lefs than thofe of the fycamore ; they are fhaped like 
thofe of the vine, and are fufpended by fmall ftalks 
adorned with a‘nap or hairy fubftance. The flowers 
are fine, large and numerous, of a yellow colour 
mixed with red or purple, and fhaped like a bell: 
The Hower is fueceeded by a fruit as large as a fil- 
bert, which, being ripe, opens into three or four 
partitions, where the cotton 1s found as white as fnow. 
eat fwells each flake to the fize of an apple. ‘There 
is another fort of cotton tree that differs from the 
former in fize; for’ this grows to four or five feet 
high: The flowers and fruit are like the former.’ 
Both thefe forts grow in Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, ‘Can- 
dia and the indies. In Jamaica, Barbadoes and other 
parts of the Wettindies, the cotton plant grows:toa 
tolerable height, and fpreads on every fide its branch- 
es; it has fmall, green, pointed leaves, and bearsa 
yellow flower refembling in form the rofe of the 
fweet briar.. The fruit is as large as a tennis ball, 
andhas a’thin crufty fhell, of a brown or blackith 
colour. In thefe are found the cotton. In. fome of 
the American plantations there are cotton buthes very 
apr like thofe of Egypt, Arabia, &c. 
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