Cotton: from field to bale

Cotton is the seed hair of a shrub. In India it is mostly sown with the monsoon, picked by hand from the open bolls in several rounds, and taken to a gin, where the fiber (lint) is pulled off the seed. Lint is roughly a third of the picked weight. It is pressed into bales and sold to spinning mills, which judge it on staple length (how long each fiber is), micronaire (fineness and maturity), strength and cleanliness. These decide how fine and even a yarn the cotton can make.