on thread is undoubtedly a far cry, but it will
be seen further on that the connection between the two is a very real
and vital one.

Now it is the main purpose of this book to unfold the wonderful story of
the plant, and to fill in the details of the gap from tree to thread,
and to trace the many changes through which the beautiful downy cotton
wool passes before it arrives in the prim looking state of thread ready
alike for the sewing machine or the needle of a seamstress.

Image: FIG. 2.--Bobbins of cotton thread.

Remembering that the great majority of the readers of this little book
must of necessity be quite unaccustomed to trade terms and technical
expressions, the author has endeavoured to present to his readers in
untechnical language a simple yet truthful account of the many
operations and conditions through which cotton is made to pass before
reaching the final stages.

Nature provides no lovelier sight than the newly opened capsules
containing the pure white and creamy flocculent masses of the cotton
fibre as they hang from almost every branch of the tree at the end of a
favourable season.

And how strange is the story of this plant as we look back through the
centuries and listen to the myths and fables, almost legion, which early
historians have handed down to us or imaginative travellers have
conceived. There is, however, every reason to believe that in the far
distant ages of antiquity this plant was cultivated, and yielded then,
as it does now, a fibre from which the inhabitants of those far-off
times produced material with which to clothe their bodies.

It will not be considered out of place if some of the early beliefs
which obtained among the peoples of Western Asia and Europe for many
years are related.

Like many other things the origin of the Cotton plant is shrouded in
mystery, and many writers are agreed that it originally came from the
East, but it will be seen later on that equally strong claims can be
presented from other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Many of us
have been amused at the curious ideas which people, say of a hundred
years ago, had of the Coral Polyp.

Even to-day children may be heard singing in school,

"Far adown the silent ocean
Dwells the coral _insect_ small"!

Not a few of the early naturalists believed that the Coral was a plant
and while living in the sea water it was soft, and when dead it became
hard!

We smile at this, of course, but it was