A popular, illustrated account of cotton from the plant to the spun yarn, by the director of the Bolton textile school. It covers the plant's origin, myths such as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, species, diseases and pests, and cultivation in the United States, Brazil, Peru, India, Russia, China and Egypt. It then treats the microscopic structure of the fibre, ginning and baling, the machine processes of opening, scutching, carding, drawing, roving and combing, the history of spinning from the distaff through Hargreaves, Arkwright and Crompton, mule and ring spinning, and the uses of the yarn. Illustrated with photographs and drawings of plants and machinery, with an index.

Chapter III of Otis T. Mason's Woman's Share in Primitive Culture (pp. 41-69), surveying textile arts practiced by women in non-industrial societies. It covers basketry types (plaited, wicker, twined, coiled), hand weaving without a frame, bark cloth, spinning and twisting fibers, simple looms and heddles, feather work, natural dyes and mordants, and netting and knots. Examples come from Native North America (Navajo, Hupa, Ute, Moki, Panamint), Polynesia, Africa, and South America, with illustrations of baskets, a Mohave cradle, a Navajo loom, and pottery impressions of twined weaving.