Cotton along the roadside

I drove right through the heart of central California's big valley yesterday on state route 46. It connects the main north-south roads of the state, Highway 99 (the old main highway) and I-5 to the west. There is nothing much to see -- dairy farms, many ugly unattended brown fields, and acre upon acre of cotton fields. I bet many people do not know that cotton grows on plants. As a kid, when my family would pass through this area on family vacations, we would stop alongside the road and pick up cotton that lay on the ground. I did that again today -- to show my daughter when I get home. Cotton is picked by machine nowadays, a speedy process compared to olden times when "cotton pickers" did the job. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a machine that quickly and easily separated the cotton fibers from the seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds. That was a big deal and enabled the cotton industry to move into warp speed.