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When was the last time you actually thought about cotton? When was the last time you spent even half a day without it? Even if we aren’t wearing a thread of cotton, we always find it around us.
Think about it. Forget the obvious soft towels and comfortable tees, the drawstring pants and sarongs, and the cool sheets on a summer’s night. What about the small ball you dab with antiseptic on a bruise? What about your favourite pair of jeans? What about the willowing curtains and, yes, the cooking oil? And what do you think is also the food for livestock and fish? Though cotton is all around us every minute of the day, we rarely spare it a moment’s thought. Yet, were it to disappear, imagine the catastrophe!
But cotton is not just a useful fiber; it is a useful plant. Of course, the most important part of it is the fiber or lint, which is used to spin cloth. Now, most of us know that this cloth is used to make apparel and household items. But, did you know that cotton is also used to make huge quantities of industrial products as well?
Then there are the linters – the short fuzz on the seed – that give cellulose for making plastics and other products. They are also an important part of high quality paper products and often are processed into batting for padding mattresses, furniture and automobile cushions.
Next is the cottonseed. It is crushed to get oil, meal and hulls. The oil is used mainly for shortening, cooking and salad dressing. The meal and hulls, separately or together, are used as livestock, poultry and fish feed and as a versatile fertilizer. You will also find cottonseed as a high-protein concentrate in baked goods and other food products.
The stalks and leaves of the cotton plant do not go waste either. They are plowed under to enrich the soil.
Any wonder that cotton is one of the most important cash crops of the world? |