A 557269
THE
STORY
BOOK
OF
SCIENCE
JEAN
HENRI
FABRE
1817 SCIENTIA
ARTES
VERITAS LIBRARY OF IGAN CHTHE MI TY I S R E V OF UNI
PLURICUS UMUM
TUEBOR
SI-QUERIS PENINS
ULAM AMENAM
CIRCUM
SPICE
From the Library of A. W. Diack
CHAPTER XVII COTTON
66 OTTON, the most important of the materials used for our woven fabrics , is furnished by a semi-tropical plant called the cotton plant. It is an herb or even a shrub from one to two meters high, and its large yellow flowers are followed by an abundant
fruitage
of
bolls , each as large as
an
egg,
filled
with a silky flock, sometimes
bril-
liantly white, sometimes lowish
a pale yelshade ,
ac-
cording to the kind of cotton.
In the
middle of this flock
Cotton Plant (a ) Cotton Boll
are the seeds ."
" It seems to me I have seen flock of that kind fall in flakes in the spring from the top of poplars and willows, " said Claire. " The comparison
is
very good .
Willows
and
poplars have for their fruit tiny little long and pointed bolls three or four times as large as a pin's head.
In the month of May these bolls are ripe.
They open and set free a very fine white down, in the 71
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THE STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE
middle of which are the seeds.
If the air is calm,
this down piles up at the foot of the tree in a bed of cotton wool, as white as snow ; but at the least breath of wind the flakes are borne long distances , carrying with them the seeds , which thus find unoccupied places where they can germinate and become trees. Many other seeds are provided with soft aigrettes , silky plumes , which keep them up in the air a long time and permit them distant journeys in order to disseminate the plant. For example, who is not familiar with the seeds of thistles and dandelions, those beautiful silky plumed seeds that you take pleasure in blowing into the air ?"
" Can the flock of poplar bolls be put to the same use as cotton ?" Jules asked. " By no means.
There is too little of it, and it
would be too difficult to gather .
Besides , it is so
short it might not be possible to spin it.
But if we
ourselves cannot make use of it, others find it very useful.
This flock is the little birds ' cotton ; many
gather it to line their nests.
The goldfinch , among
others, is one of the cleverest of the clever.
Its
house of cotton is a masterpiece of elegance and solidity.
In the fork of several little branches , with
the cottony flock of the willow and poplar , with bits of wool that hedge thorns pull out from sheep as they pass, with the plumy aigrettes of thistle seeds , it makes for its young a cup-shaped mattress , so soft and warm and wadded that no little prince in his swaddling-clothes ever had the like.
"To build their nests , birds find materials near at hand ; they only have to set to work.
When
73
COTTON
spring comes, the goldfinch does not have to think of the materials for its nest ; it is sure that the osierbeds, thistles , and roadside hedges will furnish in abundance all that it needs.
And it ought to be
thus, for a bird has not the intelligence to prepare a long time in advance, by careful and wise industry, the things that it will need. Man, whose noble preroga- , tive it is to acquire everyPicking cotton by hand thing by work and reflection, procures cotton from distant countries ; a bird finds its cotton on the poplars of its grove. "At maturity the cotton bolls open wide, and their flock bursts out in soft flakes that are gathered by hand, boll by boll .
The flock, well dried in the sun
on screens , is beaten with flails or, better, submitted to the action of certain machines . from all seeds and husks.
It is thus freed
Without any other prep-
aration, cotton comes to us in large bales to be converted
into
fabrics
in
our
manufactories .
The
countries that furnish the most of it are India, Egypt, Brazil, and, above all, the United States of North America. "In a single year the European manufactories work up nearly eight hundred million kilograms of cotton. This enormous weight is not too much, for the whole world clothes itself with the precious flock, turned into print, percale, calico .
Thus human
activity has no greater field than the cotton trade . How many workmen, how many delicate operations,