Good job on preserving the poetry, Charley.

My husband, who is a great reader of history, tells me that in the olden days many ships were lost at sea because they screwed the cotton so tightly, then when the cotton absorbed water from leaks, it swelled and literally broke the ships apart. They disappeared at sea and nobody understood why.

Do any of you know what they did to solve that problem?

I feel real sympathy for the men who had the nasty job of stowing that wool in a hot, stuffy hold.