Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson CLXX · Topic 25: Farm and garden crops
170. Cotton
Goal: Your child studies a cotton plant or boll, finds where the fiber grows on the seed, and talks about why cotton matters in history.
You'll need
- Nature notebook, pencil and colored pencils
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A cotton plant or dried cotton bolls (craft stores sell them), or failing that a cotton ball and the book's photograph
- A map of the United States
What's in the book
A Teacher's Story about cotton with a photograph by J. H. Comstock, and the lesson: Leading thought, Method and fifteen questions, then a short poem.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
In the American South, cotton flowers in summer and the bolls open in late summer and fall. Elsewhere, use dried bolls or grow a plant from seed in a big, sunny pot (it needs a long, hot season). Cottonseed is not food.
The leading thought
Cotton has had a great influence upon our country politically as well as industrially. Its fibre was used by the ancients, and it is to-day one of the most important crops in the regions where it is grown.
The plant
How high does the plant grow? Are the stems tough or brittle?
How many forms of leaves can you find on the same stem?
If you have only a boll, look at the book's photograph of the plant.
Flowers that change color
At what time of day do the flowers open? What color are the petals when the flowers first open? What is their color later in the day? What is their color the next day?
If you have a plant, check a flower in the morning, the afternoon and the next day.
Inside the boll
How many seeds in each chamber in the cotton boll? Where on the seed does the cotton grow?
Of what use to the wild cotton plant are seeds covered with cotton?
Pull the fiber gently off one seed. Look at the seed with the lens. Comstock also asks children to taste the sweet nectar in little pits on the leaves; skip that and just watch which insects come to them.
History
“How the cotton plant has affected American history.”
For an older child: before 1865, most Southern cotton was grown and picked by enslaved people, and the spread of cotton farming went hand in hand with the spread of slavery that divided the country before the Civil War. Find the cotton-growing states on the map.
Nature notebook
Draw an open boll with its fluffy locks, and one seed with fibers attached. Twist a few fibers between your fingers to make a tiny thread and tape it on the page.
Answers to the book's problems
The cotton grows as hairs from the seed coat. In the wild, the fluff helps the seeds float on the wind or water to new places.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.