Terroir (French pronunciation: from terre, land) is the set of all environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat.
Eli Whitney, a native of Massachusetts, secured a patent on the cotton gin in 1793, though patent office records indicate that the first cotton gin may have been built by a machinist named Noah Homes two years before Whitneyâs patent was filed.
Eli Whitney was the first to make a cotton gin for short-staple cotton. His cotton gin had a hand crank which when turned, pulled the cotton through wire teeth to pull out the seeds and then through a second cylinder with brushes that removed the cotton from the wire teeth.