Cotton

Cotton

·       Introduction

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls can increase the dissemination of the seeds.

·       Types

Gossypium hirsutism – cotton, native to Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and southern Florida (90% of world production)

Gossypium Barba dense – called extra-long staple cotton, native to tropical South America (8% of world production)

Gossypium arboretum – tree cotton, native to Republic of India and Pakistan (less than 2%)

Gossypium herbaceous – Gossypium herbaceous, native to southern Africa and therefore the Arabian Peninsula (less than 2%)

·        Etymology

The word "cotton" has Arabic origins, derived from the Arabic word قطن (qutn or qutun). This was the standard word for cotton in medieval Arabic. The word entered the Romance languages within the mid-12th century, and English a century later.

·       History

·       Early history

The earliest proof of cotton use within the Indian landmass has been found at the location of Mehrgarh and Rakhigarhi wherever cotton threads are found preserved in copper beads; these finds have been dated to the Neolithic (5th millennium BC)

·       Americas

Cotton bolls discovered in a cave near Tehuacán, Mexico, have been dated to as early as 5500 BC, but this date has been challenged.More securely dated is the domestication of upland cotton in Mexico between around 3400 and 2300 BC.

·       Arabia

The Greeks and therefore the Arabs were not acquainted with cotton till the Wars of Alexander the good, as his modern Megatheres told Macedonian Nicator of "there being trees on which wool grows" in "Indica"

·        Iran

In Islamic Republic of Iran (Persia), the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); but, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. The planting of cotton was common in Merv, Ray and Pars of Iran. In Persian poets' poems, especially Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton ("panbe" in Persian).

·       China

During the Han dynasty (207 BC - 220 AD), cotton was big by Chinese peoples within the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.

·       Middle Ages

Handheld roller cotton gins had been employed in India since the sixth century, and was then introduced to different countries from there. Between the twelfth and ordinal centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was rife throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the sixteenth century. This automaton was, in some areas, driven by water power

·        Europe

During the late medieval period, cotton became known as an imported fiber in northern Europe, without any knowledge of how it was derived, other than that it was a plant. Because historian had written in his Histories, Book III, 106, that in India trees grew in the wild producing wool, it was assumed that the plant was a tree, rather than a shrub. This side is preserved within the name for cotton in many Germanic languages, like German Baumol, that interprets as "tree wool" (Baum suggests that "tree"; Wole suggests that "wool"). Noting its similarities to wool, individuals within the region may solely imagine that cotton should be created by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact that "There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the ends of its branches. These branches were thus pliable that they bent right down to enable the lambs to feed after they area unit hungry.

·       Early modern period

Under the Mughal Empire, which ruled in the Indian subcontinent from the early 16th century to the early 18th century, Indian cotton production increased, in terms of both raw cotton and cotton textiles. The Mughals introduced agrarian reforms such as a new revenue system that was biased in favor of higher value cash crops such as cotton and indigo, providing state incentives to grow money crops, in addition to rising market demand.

·        Egypt

In the early nineteenth century, a Frenchman named M. Jumel projected to the good ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali Pasha, that he could earn a substantial income by growing an extra-long staple Maho (Gossypium barbadense) cotton, in Lower Egypt, for the French market. Mohamed Ali pacha accepted the proposition and granted himself the monopoly on the sale and export of cotton in Egypt; and later set cotton ought to be fully grown in preference to other crops.