SELF-HELP FOR COTTON 



extract the oil with solvents, and use all, stems and 

 stalks, bolls and lint, as a source of chemical cellulose? 



Dr. Frank K. Cameron soon found that if the plants 

 were crowded three inches apart they matured quickly 

 in twenty-five or thirty days, and that the machine for 

 cutting and baling hay could be quite easily adapted to 

 the cotton plant. From there on he ran into discourage- 

 ments. Not only did a whole new series of techniques 

 have to be worked out, but many subtle influences 

 thwarted this revolutionary idea. In Washington he 

 was told pretty plainly to forget it. Powerful lumber in- 

 dustries suspected him of working against the chemical 

 utilization of wood pulp. Cotton people were com- 

 pletely disinterested. But he persevered. 



Troublesome colors which stained the oil had to be 

 removed by bleaching. A Chinese girl student, W. W. 

 Chen, learned a new method of extracting the cellulose 

 from the whole plant most efficiently. Step by step, the 

 new process was slowly perfected. 



In 1944 when the North Carolina Planning Board 

 took it up, things began to happen. An experimental 

 plant has been set up at Rockingham under Nicholas 

 Dockery, an ingenious, easygoing, former student of 

 Cameron's. When Dockery is not managing his mother's 

 big plantation, he is interested in cotton mills and in- 

 secticides and other chemical specialties. In one of his 

 plants bleached pulp from "whole cotton" is being pre- 

 pared in commercial quantities for a real industrial try- 



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