22
Modern Business Geography
ton shade, wash with a cotton wash cloth, dry your face and hands
with a cotton towel, eat your supper from a cotton tablecloth while
using a cotton napkin, rest in a chair upholstered in cotton, study by
a light fed with kerosene through a cotton wick, and in the end toss
back a cotton bedspread, crawl in between cotton sheets, nestle under
the warmth of a cotton quilt, and go to sleep on a cotton pillow. The
chief reasons for the wide use of cotton articles in the home are their
cheapness and durability, the ease with which they can be cleaned
and kept fresh, and the adaptability of the cotton fiber to a great
variety of uses.
The consumption of cotton in occupations. Nearly every occupa-
tion consumes cotton in one way or another. It is used in the fisher-
man’s net and sail, the soldier’s tent, the hunter’s smokeless powder,
the miller’s flour bags, and the dairyman’s strainer. Manufacturers
use cotton in a great many things, such as shoes, automobile tires,
books, and oilcloth. Often the manufacturer mixes some cotton
with other fibers in making woolen, linen, and silk goods.
Consumption of cotton in the tropics. Although the greater part
of the cotton produced is used by people who live in the temperate
zone, those who live in warm regions also use it extensively. In fact,
the people of the tropics use cotton goods almost to the exclusion of
wool, linen, and silk. This is not only because cotton is cheaper,
but because it is warm enough at all seasons. In this respect tropical
people contrast strongly with those, like ourselves, who live in the
temperate zone; we use a variety of clothing materials, partly
because we can afford to do so and partly because of the variation of
the seasons.
With many tropical people the question of clothing is not of great
importance, because they wear so little. Many of them wear cloths
instead of clothes. These they wrap gracefully about the body.
Among some peoples, the clothing is merely an apron or loin cloth,
which usually lasts a long time. Hence the tropical lands would
make only a small market for cotton goods were it not for their
vast populations. In India alone there are more than 315,000,000
people — as many as in all Europe outside of Russia. Each of these
millions of persons needs at least one garment. Many of them wear
not only the body cloth, but a cotton turban of eight or ten square
yards, and a cotton shawl about the same size, often embroidered
with gold. Some, of course, use as much cotton as we do.
The annual import of cotton goods into India alone is valued at
more than $200,000,000, and this is in addition to the large amount