Description: Great check with vignette of men working in the wheat fields. NY. Unissued. Rare!!! Sea Island cotton, a historically significant market class, was actively cultivated from 1790 to 1920 on islands off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It became highly valued in European markets due to its long, fine fibers, facing little competition until the U.S. Civil War disrupted trade. The origins of Sea Island cotton are debated, but its development required creating cultivars suited to the coastal islands' climate and producing a distinct product from other types of cotton. One of the major challenges in cultivating Sea Island cotton was adapting long-fiber cotton to the region's growing conditions. Although the cotton introduced to the Sea Islands came from the West Indies, where most varieties were short-fiber and needed a long growing season, it required overcoming environmental barriers such as frost, which killed plants before they could produce seeds. This made hybridization or selection methods difficult, though eventually, unique long-fiber cotton strains were developed, helping to establish Sea Island cotton as a premium market category. Its fine, silky texture and long fibers made it ideal for luxury textiles, but the combination of labor-intensive cultivation, competition from other cotton varieties, and changing market conditions led to the decline of Sea Island cotton after its peak in the early 20th century. One plausible explanation for the development of Sea Island cotton is that the distinctive traits emerged accidentally in a region with a long growing season and were later introduced to the Sea Islands. Supporting this theory, S. G. Stephens conducted experiments in the 1960s and 1970s where he hybridized Gossypium barbadense, known for its short, coarse fibers and long growing season, with a wild form of Gossypium hirsutum, which also had short fibers and a long growing season, but with fine fibers. Stephens expected the resulting plant to produce fine fibers, but he was surprised to discover that it also exhibited long fibers and a shorter growing season. He showed that this hybrid could be easily back-hybridized (using introgression) to form a cotton variety that retained the desirable characteristics"long, fine fibers and a short growing season"yet was almost entirely G. barbadense. He suggested that such an event could have occurred by chance in the 18th century, resulting in today's long, fine-fiber G. barbadense cotton. However, Stephens' hypothesis does not fully explain the specific traits of Sea Island cotton, since this accidental hybridization could not have taken place in the Sea Islands, where the climate and growing conditions were different. Historical weather records provide another possible explanation for the development of Sea Island cotton. In the winter of 1785-1786, Georgia planters attempting to introduce G. barbadense faced difficulty because the plants would typically die from frost before producing seeds or fiber. However, an unusually mild winter allowed a few plants to survive and produce seed. The next generation of these plants was able to Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.
Price: 3.5 USD
Location: Portsmouth, New Hampshire
End Time: 2024-10-21T20:16:21.000Z
Shipping Cost: 6.25 USD
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