Cottonseed

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant plants of the genus Gossypium . The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas,Africa , India and Pakistan. 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 The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed-dispersal.

According to the Foods and Nutrition Encyclopedia, the earliest cultivation of cotton discovered thus far in the Americas occurred in Mexico, some 8,000 years ago. The indigenous species was Gossypium hirsutum, which is today the most widely planted species of cotton in the world, constituting about 89.9 of all production worldwide. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa.

Cotton was first cultivated in the old world 7,000 years ago 5th millennium BC-4th millennium BC , by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, a civilization that covered a huge swath of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising today parts of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. 3 The Indus cotton industry was well developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the modern industrialization of India. 4 Well before the Common Era, the use of cotton textiles had spread from India to the Mediterranean and beyond.

Greeks and the Arabs were apparently ignorant about cotton until the time of Alexander the Great, as his contemporary Megasthenes told Seleucus of "there being trees on which wool grows" in Indica.

"Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since prehistoric 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 countries. In the 1st century, Arab traders brought fine muslin and calico to Italy and Spain. The Moors introduced the cultivation of cotton into Spain in the 9th century. Fustians and dimities were woven there and in the 14th century in Venice and Milan, at first with a linen warp. Little cotton cloth was imported to England before the 15th century, although small amounts were obtained chiefly for candlewicks. By the 17th century the East India Company was bringing rare fabrics from India. Native Americans skillfully spun and wove cotton into fine garments and dyed tapestries. Cotton fabrics found in Peruvian tombs are said to belong to a pre-Inca culture. In color and texture the ancient Peruvian and Mexican textiles resemble those found in Egyptian tombs."