214 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



July V2, 1919. 



COTTON SEED BY-PRODUCTS. 



On February 5, iit the l\oyal Society of Arts, Mr. Kd. C, 

 de Segundo read a very intert'sting and suggestive paper 

 on 'The Removal of the Eesiduil Fibres from Cotton Seed 

 and their Value fcr Non textile Purposes.' Mr. de Segundo 

 explained thit there are two main classes of cotton seed, viz. 

 the bald, black, or clenn seeds, such as Egyptian, Sea Island, 

 Brazilian, etc., of which practically the whole ' lint ' is 

 removed by the process of 'ginning,' or separating the lint 

 or textile hbre from the sfed, and the white, woolly, or 

 fuzzy seed.s mch as American, which are still covered with a 

 short white ' fuzz ' or lint after ginning. Indian cotton 

 Bceri is rea'ly of the latter class, though the fuzz remaining 

 on the seed is much shorter than in the case of the American. 



To deal with these two classes of seed, two ditferent 

 methods have been adopted. The black seeds are crushed 

 whole, and the residue, after extraction of the oil, is pressed 

 into c;ittle-cake. The white seeds are first ' delinted,' which 

 removes part l{ the short fuzz left on the seei after ginrinp, 

 the machine used being practically the same as the sawgin 

 used for the ginning itself. The short fuzz or ' linters ' 

 thus removed is used for gun-cotton, blotting paper, waste, 

 etc. The seed is then ' decorticated,' a process of separating 

 the hull, with the fuzz still remaining nu it, from the kernels 

 or meats. The latter are then crashed alone, and the oil is 

 taken out in a much purer form than is possible under the 

 whole crushing process, because the presence of the hull or 

 shell gives a darker colour to the oil. Incidentally, the process 

 afterwards required to remove this dark colour gives tlip oil a 

 slightly bitter taste, which made the value of such oils 

 distinctly lower than those got by the decorticating process. 

 The crushed kernels give a very fine residual product known 

 as cottonseed meal, which has recently been attracting 

 particular attention, because it has been shown to possess 

 yery high qualities as human food. Its protein and fat con- 

 tents are very high, and mixel with potato, or wheat flour, 

 it produces a most valuable form of food. 



As it happens, the two processes above described have 

 come to be known as the British and American processes, 

 ipspectively, because the British crushers have only had the 

 opportunity of handling the Egyptian and Indian cotton- 

 seed products in large quantities. The bulk of the American 

 crop has, naturally, always been handled in the States. The 

 Indian croj), known as Bombay seed, has always been im- 

 ported into this country [England] and crushed whole without 

 previous delinting, because its seed-lint was scarcely long 

 enough to be worth removing, and its presence in the cake 

 (though it took long t<> convince the users of it that this 

 was trtie) did no material harm if properly handled, while 

 it gave a much bulkier, and therefore cheaper cake. 



The two improvements with which Mr. de .Segundo 

 has been connected are, first, the production of a machine 

 which, after ginning and delinting in the ordinary way, 

 takes a further quantity of '.seed-lint' from the seed. This 

 seed-lint is of considerable commercial value for many non- 

 textile purposes, such as paper making, artificial silk, 

 explosive.s, and cellulose acetate, the peculiarity of the process 

 being the very clean and pure condition in which it delivers 

 the lint. Its removal also adds to the value of the seed 

 for crushing purpo.ses, saves freight by reducing its bulk, 

 and minimizes the danger of heating, and hfiice the risk 

 of fire by s[>ontaneou8 combustion. The second imprtive- 

 ment is a proces.s of removing the last vestige of fibre from 

 the hulls after decortication, thus taking two further 

 byproducts out of the last residue of the former process. 

 It was the first of these iraproveineDts that was mainly 

 4ie&li with in the lecture. 



The importance of these processes to the cotton 

 industry is certain to be very considerable. There 

 are many new areas in the British Empire where 

 cotton is being developed, such as Uganda, Nigeria, 

 and parts of the Sudan, where the woolly - seeded 

 varieties h.ive been found the most suitable, but the 

 seed has never been fully utilized because the crops 

 were compiratively small, and the cost of handling 

 them under the disadvantageous conditions found in these 

 areas, w^is scarcely covered by the value of the by products. 

 But by increasing the value of these by products the scale may 

 be turned, and such a system rendered profitable, and it 

 would certainly be an advantage to these areas to have such 

 a supply of oil and cattle and other fiods as these by-products 

 would yield. Again, there are other areas where cotton is 

 struggling against the rivalry of other competing crops, and 

 where the scale might just be turned in its favour by the 

 increased value of its byproducts. Reference was made to 

 the position of India, where the seed-crushing industry has 

 never been properly developed, and it was agreed that such a 

 process as the seed-lint removal might make all the difference. 



.\ seed-lint defibrating machine was shown working at 

 the lecture, and samples of all the by-products were exhibited 

 including bread, scones, and cakes made with a proportion of 

 cotton-seed flour. There was a very useful discussion after 

 the lecture by a number of experts representing different 

 sections of the trades affected. (A^ifure.) 



COCO-NUT FIBRE FACTORIES. 



At the beginning of the present year the Jamaica 

 Imperial Association wrote to Sir Francis Watts, the 

 Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture, for information 

 regarding the erection of a coco nut fibre factory in Jamaica, 

 also in regard to a coco-nut oil factory. In due course it 

 was found possible to procure valuable information on the 

 subjects from Trinidad, through Mr. W. G. Freeman, B.Sc, 

 acting Director of Agriculture, and through the kind offices 

 of Messrs. Neil and Qreig of that colony. 



There are three coco-nut fibre factories in Trinidad, to 

 which reference was made in a general way in the 

 Agricultunil Ncu'i for May 31, 1919, at page IG.'l. The 

 total capacity of these three factories is 480 long tons. 

 Regarding the method of manufacture, this is carried out 

 in six processes. In the first process the husks are 

 battened down in concrete tanks and soaked in rlean water 

 for about five days The second process consists in passing 

 the soaked husks through a crusher compo.sed of a pair of 

 cogged rollers pressed together hy heavy springs. The 

 third process concerns the matter of cleaning. The mills 

 for this purpose consists of a rotating drum about .'iO 

 inches diameter, fitted on the periphery with steel spikes. 

 In front of this drum there is a pair of small feed rollers 

 through which the husk is fed and held against the 

 rotating teeth. The husk is passed through these rollers 

 as far as possible without letting go of it. It is then 

 drawn back and turned end for end. After that it is turned 

 over and the operation is repeated. The long staple fibre, 

 generally known as 'brush fibre', remains in the operator'.'* 

 hands, and the short staple fibre, known as 'mattress fibre', 

 is drawn into the machine. So far as the long staple fibre 

 is concerned, it is now finished except for drying 



In the fourth process, the mattress fibre containing all 

 the refuse is taken from under the cleaning mills and put 

 in the 'willowing' macliine, which is an inclined revolvins 

 drum covered with J-inch wire mesh, kud containing 



