Just as mankind is now divided into the two great classes, the wheat-eaters and the rice-eaters, so the ancient world was divided into the wool-wearers and the cotton-wearers. The people of India wore cotton; the Europeans wore wool. When the Greeks under Alexander fought their way to the Far East they were surprised to find wool growing on trees. Later travelers returning from Cathay told of the same marvel and travelers who stayed at home and wrote about what they had not seen, like Sir John Maundeville, misunderstood these reports and elaborated a legend of a tree that bore live lambs as fruit. Here, for instance, is how a French poetical botanist, Delacroix, described it in 1791, as translated from his Latin verse: Upon a stalk is fixed a living brute, A rooted plant bears quadruped for fruit; It has a fleece, nor does it want for eyes, And from its brows two wooly horns arise. The rude and simple country people say It is an animal that sleeps by day And wakes at night, though rooted to the ground, To feed on grass within its reach around. But modern commerce broke down the barrier between East and West. A new cotton country, the best in the world, was discovered in America. Cotton invaded England and after a hard fight, with fists as well as finance, wool was beaten in its chief stronghold. Cotton became King and the wool-sack in the House of Lords lost its symbolic significance. Still two-thirds of the cotton crop, the seed, was wasted and it is only within the last fifty years that methods of using it have been developed to any extent. The cotton crop of the United States for 1917 amounted to about 11,000,000 bales of 500 pounds each. When the Great War broke out and no cotton could be exported to Germany and little to England the South was in despair, for cotton went down to five or six cents a pound. The national Government, regardless of states' rights, was called upon for aid and everybody was besought to "buy a bale." Those who responded to this patriotic appeal were well rewarded, for cotton rose as the war went on and sold at twenty-nine cents a pound. [ILLUSTRATION: PRODUCTS AND USES OF COTTONSEED] But the chemist has added some $150,000,000 a year to the value of the crop by discovering ways of utilizing the cottonseed that used to be thrown away or burned as fuel. The genealogical table of the progeny of the cottonseed herewith printed will give some idea of their variety. If you will examine a cottonseed you will see first that there is a fine fuzz of cotton fiber sticking to it. These linters can be removed by machinery and used for any purpose where length of fiber is not essential. For instance, they may be nitrated as described in previous articles and used for making smokeless powder or celluloid.