The world price of cotton in October of 2009 was 66 cents per pound. By October of this year, the price of cotton had risen to $1.26 per pound.The price of cotton had risen dramatically in the past year and that was the price of your average cotton. Who knows what price, organically grown, extremely rare Canadian cotton could fetch?
How rare? Looking up the statistics of world cotton growing, Canada was ranked 73rd with 0% production of cotton! Single-handedly, if I produced cotton, I would push up Canada’s percentage of cotton production infinitely.
November 3 rd was the first light frost in downtown Toronto. I decided that the cotton growing in my boulevard garden was not going to mature any further and I might as well pick the bolls. I gave myself a pep talk as I donned warm clothing to go out into the garden. ” Well, I enjoyed growing the cotton from seed to boll and the beautiful cotton flowers and the delight and wonderment my planting had elicited from visitors to the garden. So what if I didn’t get any cotton, did it really matter?” Slightly dejected but holding my head up high, I headed out with a large basket and secateurs.
As I snipped away I noticed something! The bolls had began to split and show their cottony interiors. I had succeeded in growing and producing cotton!
I brought several large basketfull’s into the house. Within days they all began to split and expand showing their cottony interiors. Even more amazingly, just as the different varieties of seed packets had promised, I had cotton in natural shades of pink, brown, white and green. And encased in each quadrant of the fluff were seeds for next year’s cotton.
What to do with this precious cotton? I will soon announce an artist’s limited edition of cotton on my website www.vreiss.com .
