An encyclopedia article on cotton from The Americana, covering its history and early use, botany of the Gossypium species, and the differences between Upland and Sea Island cottons. It also discusses cultivation, plant diseases and insects, production costs, the cotton-seed by-products industry, the growth of cotton manufacturing in New England and the South, and world and U.S. production statistics. It ends with a bibliography, and a table of U.S. crop figures from 1790-91 to 1900-01 appears.