[13] 



THE COTTONSEED-OIL MANUFACTURE. 



And what are we now doing? Instead of returning the cotton-seed 

 to the soil, we now, to a large extent, sell it to the oil manufacturer 

 getting in return for ten times the amount of soil ingredients removed 

 by the bale of lint, about one-tenth of what the lint sold for; or about 

 one hundred times less, weight for weight. Now when it is considered 

 that the soil ingredients so sold could actually, within ten years, have 

 been converted into ten crops of cotton : the operation, in a business 

 point of view, appears simply preposterous. 



The soil ingredients are our capital, and it is this we sell, at a mere 

 nominal value, in selling our cotton-seed. 



Should we, therefore, discourage the cottonseed-oil manufacture? 



Yes, if we continue (as is the case now) to export the cake, and with 

 it the essence of the soil s fertility, to New and Old England. No, if 

 we get back the cottonseed cake, leaving the oil as toll to the manufac 

 turer. Seed cake is worth more to us than the raw seed to which it 

 corresponds. But in order to carry out this programme effectually, it 

 would be necessary to have oil presses scattered broadcast through the 

 country. I believe the time will come when our cotton-seed will be car 

 ried to the press as naturally as we now carry our grist to mill. But 

 for the present it will be most advisable for farmers to return their 

 cotton-seed religiously to the soil on which it grew. 



And this is the first and foremost rule to prevent exhaustion : Return 

 faithfully to the soil (whether directly, or through cattle fed with them,} 

 all those portions of crops whose selling price would not enable you to buy 

 back the manurial ingredients it contains, besides yielding you a full and 

 fair remuneration for the labor of production. And least of all let 

 any portion of such crop go to waste, or be burnt. 



MANURE-MAKING. 



The utilization of the offal (so to speak) of our crops is most inti 

 mately connected with that of the preservation and collection of 

 manure. It seems incredible to those who have never tried it, what a 

 large amount of fertilizing material can be accumulated in the course 

 of a year, when we stop the thousand-and-one leaks through which 

 the greater portion of these ingredients now escapes ; when in short 

 manure-making is regarded as a business, second in importance only to 

 crop-making, of which it is one of the chief conditions of success. 



In this we must follow the example of all the older communities in 

 the world, and the sooner the better. Unfortunately, many of those 



