1793
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.
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.
No. Short-staple cotton grew plentifully in the South-eastern states.
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.
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.
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.
Short-Staple Cotton
The cotton-gin. A simple device for separating the seed from the lint. It enormously speeded the production of short-staple cotton.
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.
The invention of the cotton-gin - able to speed-up the production of short-staple cotton, used for popular cheap goods like blankets.
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.