The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-16

"HE greatest money producing
 crop in the world is cotton. |
 ! is, next to gold and silver. the thing of value the whole wide world needs and must have wherewith to clothe itself.
 The story of the evolution of cot ton culture, its spinning and weaving, carries in its warp and wool a TO- mantle and realistic thread of empire. slave trading, piracy and four years of bloody war in the United States.
 The romantic speaks of the scruoby tree with it's golden fleece white as snow; the enwrapping cloths of Cleo patra and the princesses of the Phar- aohs. for in those days the fine spun fabric was more valuable than linen, more treasured than the delicate wrap pings of the silk cocoon.
 The story of the evolution of cot ton culture and manufacturing tells of the bringing of the wool tree to this country of its first discovery in known records as a tree, growing far be- yond the deserts in the fertile valleys of Egypt Phoenicia, Judea, Arabia and Persia. The Babylonians had bought this "tree wool from the caravan traders, but they knew nothing of it's growth and cultivation. They fash toned it into "the cloth of gold It was described to them as trees, the fruit of which is wool, exceeding in beauty and goodness that of any sheep
 Cotton trees, or plants, of varying fineness and length of fibre are found in many tropical countries. Our Amer ican plant is the imported scion. brought to it's highest perfection of production, and value. By value is meant texture, color and length of staple and resilliency. Very like the un- trained youth of semi-barbaric type. who, coming to this country, through the melting pot is refined and brought to good, useful citizenship. is our cot ton plant today. And so this wool of trees" also called linen by the peo- pie of India, who clothed themselves in it, has become our "uplands' of to- day.
 And our exceeding sheer and fine spun muslins of today are not more del- icate in texture than those of the an- cients, whose royalty clothed them selves in gold brocade and .filmy mus 1ins." The Hindus, along with their ocultism, mastered the art of fabrica- ton of the most filmy weaves, and modern invention has not surpassed, if it has equaled, the wonderful product of their looms.
 Cotton Cultivation
 India and China were the first coun- tries to undertake the cultivation of cotton; make one plant or tree grow near to another and an increased num- ber locks of fleece unfold upon the one plant They succeeded to de- gree, for in 12SO. Marco Palo, the trav eler, found the wooden blow drawn by the OK or the camel cultivating the plant in a primitive way. Other coun- tries tried to cultivate the cotton plant. but failed by reason of climatic condi- tions.
 The resemblance of the fruit to wool has fixed 1t in the minds of many peo- ples as tree wool and today the Ger mans call 1t baum woolle" In Egypt it was called gossypion, and in Arabia 'kutn;" the French called 1t kotn and the Anglicised name Is cotton.
 Our American plant like much of our people, is the improved type, from the base stock of other lands, for ours re- sembles the original only to a degree. The first trees or plants were peren- nial or at least bore fruit for seven years. Our present plant is an an nual. much like it's brother the milk weed whose fibre is too airy fairy to be spun; whose "silken purse is loos- ened' and its contents borne along on the softest of zephyrs.
 Columbus found species of the cotton plant growing in the Indes. Cortez saw the Aztecs of Mexico spinning cotton and highly skilled in weaving fine cot ton cloths. 1t is recorded that the