SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



carried on as in any oil mill. In such a plant, the delint- 

 ing operation costs half a cent a pound, and as a by- 

 product this lint could, and would, be sold cheap for 

 chemical processing to rayon, film, and lacquer bases. 



Thus semilint cotton would be a twofold help. What 

 lint it did produce would not go into textiles in com- 

 petition with ordinary cotton. It would, however, keep 

 cotton acres in cotton production, and we need an an- 

 nual crop of some twelve million bales, or twenty-four 

 million acres, if the ways and means of living of a tenth 

 of our population are not to be completely disrupted. 

 Cotton for seed would mean cotton acres without 

 cotton, a smart way of whipping that particular devil. 



Semilint cotton also helps cottonseed. A chronic un- 

 dersupply of an important commodity is almost as bad 

 as a chronic oversupply. It encourages substitution. 

 Cottonseed oil is our most important edible oil. It is 

 the base of butter and lard substitutes and salad oils. 

 If there is not enough to fill the growing demand for 

 all these food products, these industries will turn to 

 other vegetable oils. The increase in the peanut and 

 soybean crops is thus another threat to the cotton 

 grower. In the same way, cottonseed meal is a most 

 important protein feed for cattle. Already, right in 

 Texas, more grain sorghums and corn are being grown 

 to make up for the lack of cottonseed meal. 



This worldwide, interrelated complexity of lint and 

 seed, of main products and by-products, of competition 



46 



