It should perhaps here be remarked, that the color of cotton in its perfection is precisely that of the blossom—­a beautiful light, but warm cream-color.  In buying cotton cloth, the “bleached” and “unbleached” are perceptibly different qualities to the most casual observer; but the dark hues and harsh look of the “unbleached domestic” comes from the handling of the artisan and the soot of machinery.  If cotton, pure as it looks in the field, could be wrought into fabrics, they would have a brilliancy and beauty never yet accorded to any other material in its natural or artificial state.  There cannot be a doubt but that, in the robes of the ancient royal Mexicans and Peruvians, this brilliant and natural gloss of cotton was preserved, and hence the surpassing value it possessed in the eyes of cavaliers accustomed to the fabrics of the splendid court of Ferdinand and Isabella.

The cotton-blossom is exceedingly delicate in its organization.  It is, if in perfection, as we have stated, of a beautiful cream-color.  It unfolds in the night, remains in its glory through the morn—­at meridian it has begun to decay.  The day following its birth it has changed to a deep red, and ere the sun goes down, its petals have fallen to the earth, leaving inclosed in the capacious calyx a scarcely perceptible germ.  This germ, in its incipient and early stages, is called “a form;” in its more perfected state, “a boll.”

The cotton-plant, like the orange, has often on one stalk every possible growth; and often, on the same limb, may sometimes be seen the first-opened blossom, and the bolls, from their first development as “forms,” through every size, until they have burst open and scattered their rich contents to the ripening winds.

The appearance of a well-cultivated cotton-field, if it has escaped the ravages of insects and the destruction of the elements, is of singular beauty.  Although it may be a mile in extent, still it is as carefully wrought as is the mold of the limited garden of the coldest climate.  The cotton-leaf is of a delicate green, large and luxuriant; the stalk indicates rapid growth, yet it has a healthy and firm look.  Viewed from a distance, the perfecting plant has a warm and glowing expression.  The size of the cotton-plant depends upon the accident of climate and soil.  The cotton of Tennessee bears very little resemblance to the luxuriant growth of Alabama and Georgia; but even in those favored States the cotton-plant is not everywhere the same, for in the rich bottom-lands it grows to a commanding size, while in the more barren regions it is an humble shrub.  In the rich alluvium of the Mississippi the cotton will tower beyond the reach of the tallest “picker,” and a single plant will contain hundreds of perfect “bolls;” in the neighboring “piney-woods” it lifts its humble head scarcely above the knee, and is proportionably meager in its produce of fruit.

The growing cotton is particularly liable to accidents, and suffers immensely in “wet seasons” from the “rust” and “rot.”  The first named affects the leaves, giving them a brown and deadened tinge, and frequently causes them to crumble away.  The “rot” attacks the “boll.”