Cotton production in India. 19th-century artwork from India of two women ginning cotton (top) and a man carding cotton (bottom). Cotton bolls develop from the flowering parts of the cotton plant and consist of cotton fibres surrounding the seeds of the plant. The bolls are harvested and processed to obtain the fibre, which is used in clothes and other textiles. Ginning separates cotton fibres from their seeds. Carding disentangles, cleans, and mixes the fibres. Cotton is a major crop, cultivated in many tropical and subtropical countries. This opaque watercolour, in the Kashmir style, dates from the 1850s.