Going back to the 1700's--Short-staple cotton differed from the long-staple variety in two important ways: 1. It's bolls contained seeds that were much more difficult to extract by hand and 2. it could be grown almost anywhere south of Virginia and Kentucky- the main requirement was a guarantee of two hundred frost-free days.
Short-staple cotton differed from the long-staple variety in two ways: 1. It's bolls contained seeds that were much more difficult to extract by hand 2. It could be grown almost anywhere south of Virginia and Kentucky--the main requirement was a guarantee of two hundred frost-free days. Long-staple cotton requires a more semitropical area such as on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia.
smooth cotton and rough cotton Long staple & short staple
Long-staple cotton is for better-quality fabrics. Short-staple cotton is for cheap garments, sheets, blankets and a mass of other goods for which there was a limtless market in 1861. The South was growing short-staple cotton.
cotton gin
It is suitable for mass-produced items like blankets.
1793
The ability to produce short-staple cotton Virginia, but removing seeds from the cotton bolls was so labor intensive that growing short-staple cotton was only marginally profitable. That situation changed after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. With the seed extraction problem solved, short-staple cotton became the South's major industry. Cotton became king.
cotton gin
The cotton-gin. A simple device for separating the seed from the lint. It enormously speeded the production of short-staple cotton.
The cotton gin made it profitable to grow short staple cotton across the South. Previously, it had only been profitable to grow long staple cotton on the seal islands.
In American history, it is a new product that overshadowed all else (Tobacco, sugar, rice, long-staple cotton) economies when the all else economies decline around 1820's. A heartier and coarser strain of cotton that could grow successfully in a variety of climates and soils, short-staple cotton was harder to process than long-staple variety because its seeds were diff. to remove from the fiber.
A staple fibre is a short fibre A filament fibre is a long fibre it has nothing to do with being man made or natural