as I have formerly described by the name of the cotton-tree. The other 2
sorts I never saw anywhere but here. The trees of these latter sorts are
but small in comparison of the former, which are reckoned the biggest in
all the West India woods; yet are however of a good bigness and height.
One of these last sorts is not so full of branches as the other of them;
neither do they produce their fruit the same time of the year: for one
sort had its fruit just ripe and was shedding its leaves while the other
sort was yet green, and its fruit small and growing, having but newly
done blossoming; the tree being as full of young fruit as an apple-tree
ordinarily in England. These last yield very large pods, about 6 inches
long and as big as a man's arm. It is ripe in September and October; then
the pod opens and the cotton bursts out in a great lump as big as a man's
head. They gather these pods before they open; otherwise it would fly all
away. It opens as well after it is gathered; and then they take out the
cotton and preserve it to fill pillows and bolsters, for which use it is
very much esteemed: but it is fit for nothing else, being so short that
it cannot be spun. It is of a tawny colour; and the seeds are black, very
round, and as big as a white pea. The other sort is ripe in March or
April. The fruit or pod is like a large apple and very round. The outside
shell is as thick as the top of one's finger. Within this there is a very
thin whitish bag or skin which encloses the cotton. When the cotton-apple
is ripe the outer thick green shell splits itself into 5 equal parts from
stem to tail and drops off, leaving the cotton hanging upon the stem,
only pent up in its fine bag. A day or two afterwards the cotton swells
by the heat of the sun, breaks the bag and bursts out, as big as a man's
head: and then as the wind blows it is by degrees driven away, a little
at a time, out of the bag that still hangs upon the stem, and is
scattered about the fields; the bag soon following the cotton, and the
stem the bag. Here is also a little of the right West India cotton-shrub:
but none of the cotton is exported, nor do they make much cloth of it.