320 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[March 1, 1917. 



It is well to mention the matter of by-products, for time was 

 when the old-fashioned planter had to burn the seed and 

 stalks to get rid of them. Now, through the ingenuity of man 

 and his modern machinery there is no waste whatever, and cot- 

 tonseed products are numerous, varied and valuable. Linters, 

 oil, cake and hulls all have their uses. Even cotton stalks are 

 employed in the manufacture of fiber, paper, carpets and vege- 

 table ivory or cellulose. 



From the long-staple cotton going to make up a bale, about 

 1,200 pounds of seed are e.\tracted, and from short staple the 

 yield is only a little less, so that Imperial Valley ranchmen 

 last year received in the neighborhood of $1,250,000 for seed 

 alone. At the beginning of the cotton season in September the 

 three oil mills in the valley began paying $20 a ton for cotton- 

 seed, but because of improved shipping facilities raised the price 

 to $30. and toward the close of the year to $40. 



Of tlic immediate products of expressing the oil from the 

 seed, the linters are used for absorbent cotton and in the manu- 

 facture of high explosives. The oil makes excellent soap, is 

 widely used in cook- 

 ing as a substitute for 

 lard, and when refined 

 often replaces oHve 

 oil for the making of 

 salads. The hulls are 

 in demand for feed 

 and the cake for both 

 feed and fertilizer. 

 Cotton hulls make an 

 e X c e 1 1 e nt fattening 

 food for cattle, while 

 cottonseed meal, ob- • 

 tained by grinding the 

 cake, is not only fat- 

 tening but when fed 

 to sheep is said to 

 produce 15 to 20 per 

 cent more than the 

 normal growth of 

 wool. The five states 

 of Utah, Montana, 

 Oregon. Idaho and Washington will consume all the cottonseed 

 meal and hulls the Imperial Valley can produce for years to come, 

 thus in a sense turning cotton into wool. For winter feeding the 

 cake is made into balls about the size of an English walnut for 

 scattering over the snow. 



Thus this great new agricultural industry is becoming of keen 

 interest to labor as well as capital. .Already it has provided an 

 exceptional opportunity for unskilled workers. Shortage of 

 cotton pickers at the beginning of the season threatened disaster, 

 but the County Farm Bureau soon had the problem well in 

 hand with laborers coming from all parts of southern Cali- 

 fornia, Texas and Oklahoma. The fact that the plants would 

 not rust nor mildew on account of the absence of rain and fog 

 made it possible to extend the picking season considerably and 

 so helped mightily in solving the labor problem. Los -'\ngeles 

 bootblacks and even women have been making the wages of 

 building mechanics in the cotton fields. The rate paid ranged 

 from $1.00 to $1.25 and even $1.50 per 100 pounds, depending 

 on the stand, and ginning averaged $4.50 per bale. 



The raising of cotton in this the largest irrigated cotton area 

 in the United States has many advantages. Government crop 

 reports show that the yield is high and that the staple has 

 length, strength and uniformity ; characteristics which are very 

 desirable, and due, in part, to the absence of periods of drought 

 or of excessive rains. Government statistics also show that the 

 average yield per acre in Imperial Valley was 400 to 500 pounds, 

 or approximately one bale, whereas the average in the entire 

 country was only 170 pounds. The reasons for this greater-yield 



Cotton Field in the Imperi.'^l Valley. 



are the warm climate, rich silt soil, the ability to apply water 

 whenever needed, freedom from pests and longer growing 

 season. 



Because of this latter fact, instead of one crop, Imperial 

 Valley cotton plants produce two, or more correctly, a series of 

 crops. Cotton takes very little from the soil, and a simple system 

 of occasional crop rotation or fertilizing enables one to carry 

 on a plantation indefinitely. .\s Dei)artmcnt of Agriculture 

 ofiicials credit Imperial Valley with the highest priced short- 

 staple cotton, averaging 16 to 18 cents against 11.3 cents for the 

 entire country, it is not surprising that tracts are known to have 

 paid the full cost of the land plus the cost of irrigating, plant- 

 ing, cultivating, picking and marketing in one season and still 

 netted a profit of $25 an acre. 



On many well-worn plantations in Georgia and Alabama 

 pickers consider themselves doing well to get half a bale of 

 sliort-fiber cotton to the acre a season, while several tracts 

 under irrigation in the Imperial Valley are on record as having 

 produced two hales of long-staple cotton to the acre and two 



crops a year which 



has brought as high 

 as 28 cents a pound, 

 and this on land that 

 cost less than $100 an 

 acre, water rights in- 

 cluded. 



Cotton has been 

 grown in this locality 

 on a commercial basis 

 for only a few years. 

 There were 5,986 

 equivalent 500-pound 

 bales ginned in 1910, 

 9,790 in 1911, 8,215 in 

 1912, 22,838 in 1913, 

 49,835 in 1914, and 

 28,551 in 1915. Ac- 

 cording to the esti- 

 mates of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, 

 the cotton area in 

 1916 was 98,000 acres, or about double the average in cultiva- 

 tion the previous year. 



The statistics above include cotton grown in Mexico (Lower 

 California) and brought into this country to be ginned. The 

 same conditions of soil and climate are found in the Mexican 

 portion of Imperial Valley as in the .American, while the cost 

 of cultivating and picking is less because of the availability of 

 Chinese labor. According to official reports, the quantity of un- 

 ginned cotton imported into the customs district of southern 

 California from Mexico during the year ending July 31, 1915, 

 produced about 21,000 bales of lint. 



Some fields below the boundary line yield enormously, several 

 growers obtaining a bale and a half to two bales to the acre. 

 One grower who leased 1,600 acres at $10 an acre raised 2,000 

 bales of fine quality short-staple cotton and sold it for $160,000. 

 His profits in a single season were about $75,000. From the 

 same field a cotton stalk was cut in October that had more than 

 300 fully matured bolls. Rules for estimating yields are that 

 65 matured short-staple bolls will make a pound of cotton, and 

 that land when planted in rows three and a half feet apart and 

 the plants two feet apart will yield one bale to the acre if the 

 plants average forty bolls. An acre of plants such as was cut 

 from this Lower California field would produce more than 7 

 bales. 



The development of Imperial Valley, due to irrigation, has 

 been phenomenal. Fifteen years ago the census could have been 

 taken on the fingers of one hand. To-day it has increased to 

 over 50,000 and the thriving towns of Calexico, El Centro, Im- 



