FIBRE PLANTS 319 



Until a few years ago the cotton seed was an 

 accumulation of waste, that the gin-owners had 

 trouble to dispose of. They built their gins over 

 streams, so that the current would carry off the 

 seed as it fell. If the cotton seed was treated so 

 to-day the cotton-growers would be losing in a 

 single year $100,000,000 worth of valuable ma- 

 terial. - Instead, not far from the gin stands 

 the oil mill, and the seed is saved as carefully as 

 the baled limt at the gin. In the market it is 

 worth $16 a ton. 



The seed goes first through screens that clean 

 it of bolls, dust, and sand. The next machine is 

 the linter, which strips the seed of the short lint 

 the gin leaves on. This fuzz is used in paper mills. 

 The seeds next pass into the huller, a machine set 

 with knives that chop the seeds fine; the hulls are 

 screened out of the meats which fall, being heavier 

 than the hulls. 



The hulls may be stored in bulk as they come 

 out of the huller, or pressed into bales for more 

 convenient handling. The meat fragments are 

 crushed and cooked; then the oil is pressed out, 

 and the residue molded into cakes. These cakes 

 are usually ground before the molding that puts 

 them into the form we see oil cake in use. 



The oil goes to the refinery, after separation 



