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Bog Cotton, is the result of mill owners greed, when the cotton picked by the slaves working on the plantations was thought to be in jeapordy of drying up during the civil war in America, they brought the plants over here to try and grow it on the moorlands of England, what they got was this stunted version of the cotton plants, which in late summer bedeck the moors in this fluffy white display.
   Of course it doesn't look much from a distance, but get down to its level and let the evening sun shine through the cotton, and it is ever so beautiful to see.
   What is little known about the cotton industry, is that the misery caused to the negro slaves, wasn't the be all and end all of the story, it fuelled the cotton mills, reduced masses of people to abject hardship and poverty with nowhere to turn, both the mill owners, and the plantation owners were to blame for one of the darkest and cruelest periods in history,  reaping untold wealth from misery and depravation of both black and white slaves, no wonder they called the factories, the dark satanic mills. Of course the factory workers were paid and couldn't be called slaves technically, but the pittance they received, the hardship and suffering, and the squallid housing kept them in bondage to to the mill owners, and the impositions of state religion, Church of England, which also condoned the subjugation of the masses, fining people if they didn't attend church on Sunday.
    Whole moorlands which were common land were closed to public access so the local gentry, millowners, and clergy could enjoy exclusive hunting rights, whilst common folk were confined to the milltowns, they took what did not belong to them for their own use. In fact it was one local clergyman who owned most of the moors around Darwen, and all were members of the Masonic lodge. In fact the tower on the hill overlooking the town was built by public subscription, partly to commemorate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, but mainly as a monument to the valliant efforts of the townsfolk in re-opening the moors once again to public access. There would be mass trespasses, by ramblers onto the moors in the early part of the twentieth century demanding the moors be re-opened to public recreation. If you really think about it, it was the land grabbers who were the real trespassers, in taking what was common land in the first place.
    Cotton during the 18th and 19th centuries was the black gold of the industrial revolution, those who controled and owned it, saw only the profit they could reap from its production, and they didn't give a dam'n how that profit was to be made, or what suffering and privation they caused, king cotton became the root of all evil. 

This is interesting, Michael.  I never knew this.  I am in awe of your knowledge of history.   

It was an important part of the process that black slaves tended and picked the cotton, but did not work in the gins where it was processed, or load the bales on riverboats.  Both of these were dangerous jobs with high accident rates.   Poor whites were hired to do that, so as not to risk valuable slaves.

Ironically, the cotton industry concentrated wealth in a few families, and kept the South generally poor and backward.   America, south of the Mason-Dixon line, was essentially a colony, producing agricultural products for the North and for Europe.

I never knew that anyone had attempted to grow cotton in England.   It made sense; there was a huge demand for cotton in 19th century England.