More than 1,300 years ago, it is recorded as a singular fact that an emperor, who rejoiced in the name of Ou-ti, wore, upon the occasion of his accession to the throne of China, a cotton robe! And after old Ou-ti and his rare and royal robe had moldered in the dust for many years, the cotton-plant still bloomed along the straight paths of quaint old Chinese gardens, and long-eyed lovers, in their amorous lays, linked with their praises of their mistresses fond celebrations of the cotton-flower.

In India, even now, about the temple walls are seen luxuriant dark-green leaves, sheltering purple blossoms, which no unconsecrated hand may gather; for when the sacred pods are ripe, the Brahmans spin their contents into that tripartite thread which is their Trinity.

But it is not of the cotton Ou-ti wore, nor of those sacred purple blossoms, that we have a tale to tell; but of that cotton which, about a century ago, began to whiten the coasts and uplands of the sunny Southern States--of that cotton which is quoted in the daily papers--which is packed and marked and shipped here day by day. Possibly these operations may not suggest such mystical images to the mind as of old Ou-ti on his throne, or the great Brahmans spinning holy thread; still, ere the cotton has been crushed by black machinery, while it unfolds its pale and golden blossoms, and sets free its snowy burden under tender skies, one may imagine a glamour about it yet, though not so fanciful as that the Chinese poets wove.

The cotton of the Southern States is of two kinds--the Barbadeusian, generally known as the "Sea Island," or long-staple, which whitens our coasts and the low-lying islands that skirt them; and the "hirsute," or short-staple, growing in the middle and upper country. The latter has a green seed, more or less covered with a distinct clothing of hairs, and bears large pods of white cotton, with short staple and coarse fiber.

The cotton-planter saves his seed with the utmost solicitude, selecting from the finest and most prolific plants in his field (often from a single plant only, of fine fiber and large pod), seeds which he sows in his garden, and on which he lavishes the tenderst care. The pods of these, when ripe, he opens, and compares the staple with well-known standard varieties, and weighs it before and after removing the seed.