Growing cotton

Cotton Gossypium spp. is the premier textile fibre.

Cotton does best in warm temperate or tropical climates. The soft, fleecy fibre has been cultivated for 5,000 years. It is loved for, among other qualities, its washability (tougher than rayon), that it is stronger wet than dry, moth-free, has great wickability and a porous coolness. Synthetics stole part of the cotton market because cotton has low drapeability, wrinkles easily, shrinks, mildews, stains with sweat, and bleaches in sunlight.

Cotton enters the paper market as rags, textile scraps, and linters. Linters are a residue, the short fibres that adhere to the seed after ginning. These fibres can be cut from the seed in a series of passes through cutting blades ("first-cut linters," "mill run," "second-cut linters," etc). Scraps are the major source of non-wood fibres for paper in the United States (about 0.3 percent of all paper pulp). Cotton produces a very high-quality paper, but has high production costs. It has a well-established market niche.