Cottonseed oil is used for table purposes, for packing sardines, for cooking, making soap, candles, etc.
The greatest centers of cotton manufacture are in England, New England, the Carolinas and Georgia. Germany, Russia, India and Japan are among the important manufacturing nations.
Modern cotton mills are of immense size. The bales are opened, the cotton cleaned, carded, and twisted into slivers, rovings, and finally into yarn. Raw cotton, cotton yarn and cotton fabrics are all important in trade. About half the crop of the United States is exported in bales to be manufactured in the mills of other countries.
England has an enormous foreign trade in cotton fabrics. The United States exports chiefly unbleached muslin, more of which goes to China than to any other country.
It is certain that cotton was in use in India three thousand years ago, and in Egypt more than two thousand years ago. It was well known to the ancient civilizations of Mexico, Peru, Central America and the West Indies. When the European voyagers, Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortez, visited for the first time these ancient civilizations, the manufacture of cotton was in a flourishing condition, and the quality and beauty of the cotton goods of a high order.
=Flax= (_Linum usitatissimum_) has been cultivated for centuries. Along the upright stalk, of eighteen to twenty inches high, small narrow leaves grow; the blossoms appear in July and August, and are light blue.
Flax is grown for fiber in Russia, Belgium, Italy, France, Holland, Ireland and Egypt. Little flax fiber is produced in the United States. Plants for fiber production are straight stemmed, while the varieties grown for seed have many branches. Flax seeds are produced in Russia, India, Argentina and the United States. Plants harvested for fiber are pulled up by the root in order to obtain the greatest possible length. The fiber is separated from the stalk of the plant by retting, a process of partial decay, breaking and scutching to remove the woody parts and hackling or combing. In the best grades of flax most of this work is done by hand.
Flax or linen fiber and linseed oil are the chief products of the plant. Tow is a by-product in making linen and flax yarns and fabrics.