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Cotton’s a
Part of Life
By Dale Cougot
For at least 7,000 years, cotton has protected mankind from sun and rain, heat and cold. In North America, its legacy also weaves a long thread, tracing back to its introduction in the 15th century.
Since then, a host of industrial improvements have been made. For example, cotton gins, which separated fiber from seed 50 times faster than manual ginning, revolutionized processing.
Today’s cotton industry is a key employer and revenue generator in over 90 countries.
In the United States, over 35,000 farms produce cotton in 14 states, where plentiful sunshine ensures reliable supply of high-quality fiber. Variation in climatic conditions enables the United States to grow a full range of cotton suitable for virtually all types of fabrics and garments.
During the past forty years, technological advancements have contributed to a twofold increase in cotton production. Scientists are continually improving cultivating techniques and new plant varieties that are more sensitive to the environment and the milling process.
Cotton Starts With Nature
After the cotton plant, known scientifically as Gossypium, sheds its flowers, a hard green boll begins to grow and protect the cotton fiber as it matures. Cotton bolls, containing fiber and seeds, take about 55 days to ripen, turn brown and open, releasing their familiar blaze of white cotton fiber.
All parts of the cotton plant are useful. Of course, the
fiber, or lint, is the most valuable part of the crop, used in
making cotton cloth. And linters–the short fuzz on cotton
seed–provide cellulose for plastic, paper, padding and even
explosives.
But don’t forget about the value of cotton seed. After crushing, it is separated into oil, used for shortening, cooking and salad dressings; the meal and hulls can be used either separately or together as livestock, poultry and fish feed or fertilizer.
Even the stalks and leaves of the cotton plant have value–when they are plowed under to enrich the soil in preparation for the next year’s crop.
In addition to clothing, cotton touches the daily life of people across the globe in household textiles, medical and personal hygiene products, animal feeds, cooking oil, and currency.
Bringing Forth a Fashion-Friendly Fiber
Cotton is harvested, ginned to separate the fiber from seed and cleaned to remove bits of twig and leaf. The cleaned fiber is pressed into 220-kilogram bales, each tested for fiber length, strength, color and cleanness. At this stage, cotton first becomes export-ready. Bales are shipped to cotton spinning mills around the world to be processed.
Before the fiber can be turned into cloth it must be cleaned. After cleaning, fibers are straightened and aligned, and drawn into "sliver," which resembles an untwisted rope. This fluffy rope sliver is mechanically stretched and twisted until it winds up in a spinning frame, to be twisted and wound into bobbins.
Cotton yarn is then knitted or woven on looms into a multitude of fabrics. From one bale of cotton, knitters and weavers can manufacture 215 jeans, 409 skirts, 1,217 tee shirts or 21,960 handkerchiefs.
The author is a marketing specialist with the FAS Cotton, Oilseeds, Tobacco and Seeds Division in Washington, D.C. Tel:(202) 720-0139; Fax (202) 720-0965; E-mail: Cougot@fas.usda.gov
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