The first evidence of use and cultivativation of cotton is world wide, from India and Pakistan to Mexico and Peru.

Ancient civilizations were using cotton over 6000 years ago. The famous Greek historian Herodotus also wrote about Indian cotton: "There are trees which grow wild there, the fruit of which is a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep. The Indians make their clothes of this tree wool." In fact there were many tales of plants from the Far East that grew "wool".

In Europe, wool was the only fiber used to make clothing. Arabs brought the cotton plant to Spain in Middle Ages.

During the late medieval period cotton was being imported and processed all over Europe.

In the fourteenth century cotton was grown in Mediterranean countries and shipped from there to mills in the Netherlands in western Europe for spinning and weaving.

During the late medieval period cotton was being imported and processed all over Europe.

In the fourteenth century cotton was grown in Mediterranean countries and shipped from there to mills in the Netherlands in western Europe for spinning and weaving.

Until the mid eighteenth century, cotton was not manufactured in England, because the wool manufacturers there did not want it to compete with their own product. They had managed to pass a law in 1720 making the manufacture or sale of cotton cloth illegal. When the law was finally repealed in 1736, cotton mills grew in number. In the United States though, cotton mills could not be established, as the English would not allow any of the machinery to leave the country because they feared the colonies would compete with them.

But a man named Samuel Slater, who had worked in a mill in England, was able to build an American cotton mill from memory in 1790. In 1793, a man by the name of Eli Whitney patented a machine call the cotton gin. This invention revolutionized the way lint was separated from the seed.  Up to that time, for centuries, the separation process had all been done by hand.  With Whitney's gin, short for the word engine, lint volume was increased for each worker from 1 lb. to 50 lbs. per day.

Harvesting the cotton by hand was another limitation of productivity.  An experienced laborer could pick approximately 450 pounds of seed cotton (cotton removed from the plant with seeds intact) by hand per day.  A picking device was first patented in 1850 and a stripper (a machine that strips both open and unopened bolls and trash from the plant) in 1871.  In the early 1930's, after years of development and change, the Rust Brothers of Mississippi used a one row mechanical cotton picker (a machine that used revolving spindles or barbed points to grab and pull the cotton from the open boll) of their design to pick approximately 8,000 pounds of seed cotton in one day.  This was quite an improvement in cotton harvest efficiency.

GROWTH...

Cotton is grown in about 80 countries, in a band that stretches around the world between latitudes 45 North to 30 South. For a good crop of cotton a long, sunny growing season with at least 160 frost-free days and ample water are required. Well drained, crumbly soils that can keep moisture well are the best. In most regions extra water must be supplied by irrigation. Because of it's long growing season it is best to plant early but not before the sun has warmed the soil enough.
Seedlings appear about 5 days after planting the seeds. Weeds have to be removed because they compete with seedlings for water, light and minerals and also encourage pests and diseases. The first flower buds appear after 5-6 weeks, and in another 3-5 weeks these buds become flowers.
Each flower falls after only 3 days leaving behind a small seed pot, known as the boll. Each boll contains about 30 seeds, and up to 500,000 fibers of cotton. Each fiber grows its full length in 3 weeks and for the following 4-7 weeks each fiber gets thicker as layers of cellulose build up the cell walls. While this is happening the boll matures and in about 10 weeks after flowering it splits open. The raw cotton fibers burst out to dry in the sun. As they lose water and die, each fibre collapses into what looks like a twisted ribbon. Now is time for harvesting. Most cotton is hand-picked. This is the best method of obtaining fully grown cotton because unwanted material, called "trash", like leaves and the remains of the boll are left behind. Also the cotton that is too young to harvest is left for a second and third picking. A crop can be picked over a period of two months as the bolls ripen. Countries that are wealthy and where the land is flat enough usually pick cotton with machines - cotton harvesters.

PROCESS...

After the harvested cotton has been dried and much of the trash removed, the fibers are separated from their seeds in a process called "ginning". Following separation the cotton is pressed into bales and wrapped for protection. The seeds are not wasted, and are used to make cotton seed oil and food for cattle.
The next step is "classing" to decide the quality of cotton. The "classer" judges cotton samples by hand and by eye. The value depends on the length of fiber, its color, its feel and the amount of remaining trash. Once the quality of the bale is decided, the price is set and the cotton is taken to the market. It is sold to a local mill or to a cotton merchant who sells cotton to mills farther away or abroad.
To turn a tightly packed bale of raw cotton with its millions of tangled fibers into a fabric needs a number of specific stages. First of all the cotton fibers have to be spun. From ancient times it was done by hand. But, in 1765, the spinning jenny was invented by an Englishman named James Hargreaves. This machine was able to spin eight to eleven threads at the same time. In 1769, Richard Arkwright, introduced a roller spinning method, which pulled and twisted the yarn and wound it on large spools in one operation.
Today, spinning is done by very sophisticated machines: the contents of several bales are fed into opening machines that open out fibers into small tufts and remove much of the remaining trash. The loose, fluffy fibers are then formed into a long sheet that is wound into a roll called a lap which is fed into a carding machine that untangles the cotton into single fibers and forms them into a long soft rope called a sliver. Several slivers are fed into a drawing machine that combines them into a single sliver that is finally drawn into a much finer strand of fibers called a roving. The roving is wound onto a bobbin and drawn out to its final size on a spinning frame, the process is called "ring spinning". Here it is twisted into what is known as yarn. A more recent process called "open-end" spinning sends the sliver into a machine that twists it directly into yarn.
The best quality yarn is combed cotton which is passed through a machine that removes short fibers before spinning. This gives a much stronger, cleaner, and smoother yarn. It is also more expensive to make, since as much as one-fifth of the fibers may be removed during combing.
After the yarn is spun it is wound on special tubes ready to be dyed. Following dyeing the single strands of yarn are twisted together into various thicknesses. After that, the yarn is wound on tubes of different weights and is ready to be sold.
As you can see the process from a seed to yarn is a long and laborious one, but because of cotton's many good qualities it is well worth the effort. Popularity of cotton yarn and fabric is great and growing.