Minor Cereals, Oil-bearing and Leguminous Seeds. 159 



found, however, that cattle would eat them freely, and they have 

 come into extensive use for steer and cow feeding, having a market 

 value of from two to four dollars per ton. Cotton-seed hulls, as 

 shown by the table, contain less digestible nutrients than oat 

 straw, but since they are a by-product which would otherwise be 

 wasted, they are of considerable advantage to feeders in proximity 

 to the mills. Where broken kernels of the cotton seed adhere to 

 the hulls, their feeding value is considerably increased. 



222. Fertility in cotton seed. So rich is cotton-seed meal in 

 fertilizing elements that no small part of it goes at once from the 

 oil mills to fertilizer works, there to be mixed with other sub- 

 stances, and to be sold back to planters as a fertilizer. In the lint, 

 which is the one object sought in cotton growing, there is but a 

 trace of nitrogen and mineral matter, while the seed is rich in 

 these elements of fertility. In the 4,500,000 tons of seed which 

 must be grown each year in producing the cotton crop of the 

 South, the amount of fertility taken from the land is almost 

 beyond comprehension. In this continuous drain of fertility by 

 cotton growing we have a partial explanation of the present 

 poverty of the soils in many of the cotton districts. If the 

 cotton grower will adopt mixed farming and feed cotton seed and 

 cotton-seed meal to his stock, returning the manure to the land, 

 two values will be received from the crop, and a rational agricult- 

 ural practice inaugurated, which is sorely needed in a region 

 where nature has done so much and man so little to place agricult- 

 ure upon a substantial basis. 



223. Cocoanut meal. The residue in the manufacture of cocoa- 

 nut oil is known as cocoanut or cocoa meal. It is used quite exten- 

 sively by dairymen in the vicinity of San Francisco. Cocoanut 

 meal has the reputation of producing fine butter of considerable 

 firmness and is therefore recommended for summer feeding to dairy 

 cows. It may be used with advantage for swine and sheep, 

 serving also as a partial substitute for oats with working horses. 

 (474) 



224. Palmnut meal. This residue in the manufacture of palm 

 oil has been extensively used in Europe as a stock food. It has 

 good keeping qualities, is appetizing and easily digested. The 



