Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Cotton is a plant that produces fibers , which are used to make clothes and other products, like towels , carpets or sheets . Clothes made out of cotton are especially light and comfortable .
Uses of Cotton
Every part of the cotton plant can be used. The long cotton fibers are used to make cloth , the short fibers can be used in the paper industry. You can make oil or margarine out of the seeds of the cotton plant. The leaves and stalks of the cotton plant areplowed into the ground to make the soil better. Other parts of the plant are fed to animals.
History of cotton
Humans realized very early that the soft, fluffy fibers of cotton can be used to make comfortable clothes.
Cotton was first grown in Pakistan and the Nile valley about 3,000 years ago. Native Americans started growing cotton at the same time in North America. Europe was introduced to cotton through Arab merchants at about 800 A.D . By 1500 cotton was known all over the world. When Europeans founded colonies in America they relied on cotton to make a living . In the early days, growing and harvesting cotton was a hard job that was done manually by slaves . In 1793 an American, Eli Whitney, invented the cotton gin , a machine that separated seeds from fiber. This new invention allowed farms to produce even more cotton. In the second part of the 20th century people started to produce synthetic fibers , like nylon and acrylic. The importance of cotton began to drop . By the middle of the 1970s cotton made up only one third of all fibers worldwide . Many cotton farmers had to close their farms. Governments , especially in America, had to help cotton farmers during this economically difficult period . By 1990 the demand for cotton clothes became bigger, simply because people saw that cotton was a natural fiber and very comfortable to wear. By the turn of the millennium cotton regained its importance . Towards the end of the 20th century farmers started experimenting with organic cotton , grown without chemicals or pesticides . Such cotton, however , has turned out to be more expensive than normal cotton.