Excerpt from The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant, to Which Is Added a Sketch of the History of Cotton Trade AS this little book was originally intended for publication, like its predecessors before-mentioned, as a hand-book in connection with the Literary Department of the South Kensington Exhibitions, I have treated in a separate chapter of the history of cotton, its use by ancient races in Asia, Africa, and America, and its gradual introduction amongst the nations of Europe. The various stages of its progress Westward were so distinctly and intimately de pendent on many remarkable events in the world's history, by which its advance was alternately retarded and facili tated, that the annals of the vegetable wool which holds so important a place amongst the manufacturing industries of Great Britain are hardly less romantic than the fable of T be Vegetable Lamb, which was its forerunner. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.