AbstractDifferent varieties of cotton drawn from various botanical species were subjected to swelling and stretching in 64.5 (w/w) aqueous zinc chloride at 32° ± 1°C for different intervals ranging from 10 to 50 min. Swelling was almost complete in 30 min. Samples stretched to original length after this interval showed tremendous improvement in orientation and strength both at zero and 3 mm gauge lengths. In several cases, the improvement was higher than that obtained with similar treatment in sodium hydroxide of mercerizing concentration at room temperature. Swelling in zinc chloride was found to be independent of the variety of cotton as evidenced by the 50 X‐ray angle for the stretched fibers, which was about 9° for all the six cottons included in this
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