snaps at a
touch; some has long fibers and some short. Each variety has its name
and is peculiar to a given country."

"Oh!" came in chorus from his audience.

"For instance, the most delicate or fine quality of thread is produced
from the Sea Island cotton, and usually this type is quite expensive;
it has so many seeds and they take up so much room in the pod that
after they have been removed only a small quantity of cotton remains
and that makes it costly. Almost every other kind gives more lint (or
picked cotton) than does this variety. The Egyptian cotton is somewhat
on this same order. India, China, Arabia, Persia, Asia Minor, Africa,
and the Coromandel Coast all have a common type of plant which probably
first grew in the latter place and was transplanted from there to the
other countries.

"In Cuba a sort of cotton vine is found that has very large pods and a
great number of seeds. Some of the fibers of this plant are long and
some short. It is not a very good kind of cotton to cultivate because
the long fibers get tangled up with the seeds and often break when
being separated. Moreover the short fibers are all mixed in with the
long.

"This gives you some notion of the different species of cotton. Were I
to tell you of all the kinds you would be tired hearing about them. I
myself get interested because I carry so much cotton in my ship--bales
upon bales of it. Sometimes I take cotton out from America to countries
that either do not have any, or do not have as much as they want;
sometimes I bring back here varieties that we cannot raise in the
South."

"What kind of cotton do we raise in the United States?" Mary asked.

"The bulk of our cotton is long-stapled and is called Georgian Upland,"
was the response. "The whole plant is rough and hairy--leaf, branch,
and pod. Some persons think that originally it came from Mexico.
However that may be, here it is, and although we raise some little of
other sorts we have far more of this than anything else. We can thank
it, too, for much of the wealth of this country of ours for Texas,
Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and
Arkansas are all big cotton-growing States. Florida, Tennessee, Indian
Territory, Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma also lie
in the cotton belt and ship substantial crops."

The little man rose.

"I could go on talking cotton forever," jested he. "Think of a sacred
cotton tree often as high as