A popular 1904 magazine article surveying the American cotton industry, from cultivation, ginning and the two main U.S. varieties to the mill processes that turn baled cotton into cloth. It follows the machinery in sequence (opener, scutcher, lap-machine, carding, drawing, slubbing, roving, throstle and mule spinning, warping, slashing, power-loom weaving), then covers bleaching, calico printing and starching. It also gives statistics on mills, labor, the growth of Southern manufacturing and the New England concentration, and contrasts mill output with handwoven Indian muslin. Illustrated with photographs of mill machinery and cotton plants.