Cotton
Cotton bolls ready for harvest
Picking cotton in Georgia, United States, in 1943
Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known
as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub
native to tropical and subtropical regions around the
world, including the Americas, India and Africa. The
fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to
make a soft, breathable textile, which is the most widely
used natural-fiber cloth in clothing today. The English
name derives from the Arabic (al) qutn ????? , which
began to be used circa 1400.[1]
History
Cotton was cultivated by the inhabitants of the Indus
Valley Civilization by the 5th millennium BC - 4th mil-
lennium BC.[2] The Indus cotton industry was well de-
veloped and some methods used in cotton spinning and
fabrication continued to be used until the modern Indus-
trialization of India.[3] Well before the Common Era the
use of cotton textiles had spread from India to the Medi-
terranean and beyond.[4]
Cotton plants as imagined and drawn by John Mandeville in
the fourteenth century
According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edi-
tion:[5]
"Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since pre-
historic times. It clothed the people of ancient India,
Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian
era cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless
skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean coun-
tries. In the 1st cent. Arab traders brought fine muslin
and calico to Italy and Spain. The Moors introduced the
cultivation of cotton into Spain in the 9th cent. Fustians
and dimities were woven there and in the 14th cent. in
Venice and Milan, at first with a linen warp. Little cotton
cloth was imported to England before the 15th cent., al-
though small amounts were obtained chiefly for can-
dlewicks. By the 17th cent. the East India Company was
bringing rare fabrics from India. Native Americans skill-
fully spun and wove cotton into fine garments and dyed
tapestries. Cotton fabrics found in Peruvian tombs are
said to belong to a pre-Inca