286 



EXPOSITION, INTERNATIONAL COTTON. 



it to the front wheels of a farm wagon at the 

 kins-bolt. The bottom is movable, which by 

 simple machinery, when in gear, moves slowly 

 between the sides of the body, carrying the 

 manure to the rear, where it meets a rapidly 

 revolving cylinder, armed with strong iron 

 teeth, which tears the manure into shreds and 

 scatters it in an even shower as tbe team moves 

 forward. It grinds to powder and spreads 

 smoothly all sorts of manure, from the coarsest 

 and wettest to the ti'ie-t and driest. A simple 

 device restates exactly the amount to be scat- 

 tered, an 1 scatters it either broadcast or in the 

 drill, as m.iy l>j desired. The machine was 

 abundantly testel while on exhibition. The 

 perfect uniformity and speed with which it 

 does its work, render it a very desirable addi- 

 tion to the fann machinery of large farmers, 

 or of any who can afford to pay the price 

 which the manufacturers charge. 



Next in interest and in value to the cotton- 

 grower and the stock-raiser were the machines 

 for utilizing cotton-seed for milling, grindinc, 

 and expressing the oil. Previous to 1860, 

 comparatively little was known of the value of 

 cotton-seed, or of the uses to which it might 

 be applied. In many places where the lands 

 were very productive without the use of ma- 

 nure, as in the alluvial lands of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley, the cotton-seed was either burned 

 or thrown into the river to get it out of the 

 way. Where it was usad as a fertilizer it was 

 applied fresh as it came from the gin, or in a 

 halt-rotted state. Since then it has been dem- 

 onstrated that cotton-seed properly treated may 

 be made to yield the best fertilizer, the most 

 nutritious food for stock, and the purest oil for 

 various purposes. Estimating the cotton-crop 

 at 4,000,000 bales as low as it is ever likely 

 to be the amount of seed produced is 120,- 

 000,030 bushels, or 3,600,000,000 pounds = 

 1,800,000 tons, worth, at $12 per ton, $21,600,- 

 000. Worked in a mill, that is, decorticated, the 

 oil expressed and the kernel ground into meal, 

 every ton of seed will yield 60 to 80 pounds of 

 lint which the gin did not detach, fit to make 

 paper; 900 to 9iiO pounds of hulls; 60 to 80 

 pounds of oil, and 500 to 600 pounds of meal. 

 It is evident that where the raw seed was ap- 

 plied to the land, which was far from being the 

 general practice, all the above valuable articles 

 were lost to commerce, and the land not as 

 effectively fertilized as by the application of 

 the meal, because the nappy cotton and the 

 hull prevent the access of moisture and retard 

 decomposition, and because the oil is not only 

 not a source of fertility, but an obstacle to the 

 usefulness of the seed as a manure. But it' we 

 assume that only 900,000 tons of seed are avail- 

 able for treatment in mills, we then have 54,- 

 000.000 to 72,000,000 pounds of cotton, 810,- 

 f 000,000 to 864,000,000 pounds of hulls, 54,000,- 

 000 to 72,000,000 pounds of oil, and 45,000,000 

 to 54,000,000 pounds of meal, thus adding to 

 the wealth of the cotton States about $30,000,- 

 000 annually from what has been, to a great 



extent, a waste article. The value of the meal 

 and of the ashes of the hulls as a fertilizer, and of 

 the meal as a stock- food, lias bean proved beyond 

 question. Within the past few years several 

 cotton-seed oil-mills, some on a large scale, 

 have been started in the Southern States at 

 New Orleans, Louisiana, at Memphis, Tennessee, 

 at Selma and Eufaula, Alabama, at Augusta, 

 Georgia, and other places, and one is about to 

 be established at Atlanta, Georgia at most of 

 which the farmers can obtain for their seed their 

 produce in cake or meal, the mill retaining the 

 oil and the hulls. Several cotton-seed hullers 

 and grinders suitable for plantation use were 

 exhibited, whereby the seed is thoroughly de- 

 corticated and the kernel ground into meal tor 

 stock-food or for fertilizing purposes, of which 

 large numbers were purchased. No machine 

 of moderate price for expressing the oil was ex- 

 hibited. The necessary machinery for an oil- 

 mill of average capacity costs from $20,000 to 

 $25,000; the hullers and grinders from $75 

 to $150. That made by David Jvahnweiler, of 

 New York, received the first prize. 



If the method of saving green crops, called 

 " ensilage," which has been recently introduced 

 into tbe United States, though it has been long 

 in use in Europe, proves to be what its en- 

 thusiastic advocates claim for it, a sufficient 

 number and variety of " ensilage-cutters" were 

 exhibited to insure the speedy and thorough 

 execution of the cutting part of the work. In 

 the cotton States, where the winter is so short, 

 and where cattle can find abundance of succu- 

 lent pasture in the woods and canebrakes 

 nearly all the year, the necessity for ensilage, 

 which involves considerable outlay and labor, 

 is not as urgent as in those latitudes where the 

 climate is more severe. 



As the limits of this notice of the exposition 

 render a detailed report of the exhibits in every 

 group impossible, and only permit mention of 

 those things which attracted most attention on 

 the part of those for whose improvement the 

 exposition was designed, many exhibits of 

 value and merit must necessarily be passed 

 over. Though it does not coma strictly under 

 the head of farm machinery and implements, 

 the barbed-wire fencing material, of which 

 there was a very full display, may be appro- 

 priately noticed here. Nothing seemed to in- 

 terest the visitors more than this, because the 

 belief is growing rapidly that no more expen- 

 sive, inefficient, hideous, or wasteful fence can 

 be imagined than the prevailing rail- or worm- 

 fence which now disfigures the face of nature ; 

 and, further, because economy in the use of 

 the timber that is left in the older States, after 

 so many years of improvident use of it, is fast 

 becoming a generally recognized necessity. A 

 combination of the barbed-wire and plank is 

 the fence which is most approved, it being 

 feared that the slender wire alone, which is 

 hardly visible at a distance, may wound and 

 injure stock. In a period of ten years a well- 

 constructed wire-fence, made of any of the 



