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Where the Mississippi begins in the far north of the United States it is very cold in winter, but as the river flows farther and farther south it gets warmer and warmer and warmer.This warm country is nicknamed “Dixie.” When the river is near its end at New Orleans, flowers bloom even at Christmas and it is warm all the year round. Where the river begins you see white people in the fields and on the shores, but when it gets down south in Dixie Land you see more and more colored people working in the fields. The chief thing they are doing is growing cotton, for “Dixie Land,” as the song says, is way down south “in the land of cotton,” and more cotton is grown here than anywhere else Strange to say, there was no cotton in America at first. A cotton plant was brought first to Maryland from the other side of the world and grown only for its pretty flowers.

Cotton grows on a low bush in little white balls, and inside each white ball are troublesome little seeds. The cotton is picked off the bush and then these seeds have to be picked out of the cotton before it can be made into cotton thread, and then into cotton cloth, and then into cotton clothes, sheets, towels—can you think of anything else made out of cotton ?Things made of cotton were once very expensive, because it took such a long time to pick the seeds out of the cotton, but a school-teacher—a man—invented a way to pick the seeds out by a machine—an “engine” which the colored people called “a gin,” for short, and now cotton goods can be made very cheaply. Indeed, it is now hard to understand how we ever got along without cotton, for this little plant that was once grown only for its flowers is used in more things and in more ways than anything that grows out of the ground. This is why it is often called “King Cotton.”

参考译文

在美国遥远的北方密西西比河起源的地方，冬季非常寒冷，但是随着河水往南流，气候开始暖和起来，越往南流就越暖和。南方这块温暖的土地俗称“迪克西”。当河流快要走完行程，在新奥尔良，即使在圣诞节也有各种鲜花绽放，一年四季都很温暖。在密西西比河源头附近你可以看到白人在田间岸边劳作，但是随着河流进入南部迪克西地区，你会看到越来越多的黑人在田里劳动。他们最主要的农作物就是棉花，因为就像歌里唱的那样，远在南方的“迪克西的土地，就在满是白棉花盛开的地方”，这里是全世界棉花产量最多的地方。说来也怪，最初美国并没有棉花。第一颗棉花秧是从世界另一面带到马里兰州的，种棉花只是为了观赏它漂亮的花朵。

棉花成熟后，变成一个个白色的小球长在像灌木一样的植株上，每个小棉球里有很细小的种子，要把种子弄出来是很麻烦的。棉花采摘后，必须去籽，才能将棉花纺成棉线，棉线再织成棉布，然后做成棉布衣服、棉床单、棉毛巾—你能想到其他用棉花做成的东西吗？从前棉花做的东西非常昂贵，因为把棉籽从棉花里摘出来要花很长的时间，但是一所学校的男教师发明了一种机器，很快就能把棉籽取出来—黑人把这种机器叫做“轧棉机”，所以现在棉制品的生产成本就很低了。确实，现在很难理解没有棉花的时候人们是怎样过日子的呢。因为最初人们种这棵小植物只为了观其花朵，现在用棉花制作的东西之多和它的用途之广超过任何一种地里长的植物。因此棉花常被称为“棉花大王”。