SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



pounds to the inch, till the yellow oil flows out to the 

 storage tanks, leaving the expressed cake to be broken 

 into bits and either screened to size it or ground up to 

 meal. 



Starting with a worm's-eye view, learning every step 

 in the conversion of cottonseed into linters, hulls, meal, 

 and oil, as "Togie" Harrell did, is quite the fashionable 

 way of breaking into this industry. Scores of its leaders 

 have served the rigorous A-to-Z apprenticeship, climb- 

 ing to the top from the ladder's bottom rung. Its most 

 popular figure, Fred Pendleton of Dallas, came from 

 bookkeeper at seventeen to the unique pinnacle of hav- 

 ing been president of the national and two state Texas 

 and Oklahoma associations of cottonseed producers. 

 Pendleton was awarded an engraved scroll, too, on the 

 occasion of his having "served the cottonseed industry, 

 generously and faithfully, for half a century." Such 

 practical, working leadership no doubt accounts for the 

 great number of "independents," men who have never 

 failed to discount their bills in an industry where the 

 pitfalls to trap the unwary are many and competition is 

 razor keen. This up-from-the-ranks tradition also ac- 

 counts for some important improvements in methods 

 and machines that have sprung from within the mills. 



It was the president of an oil mill in Alabama, T. J. 

 Kidd, who perfected the delinting machine which strips 

 the tiny hulls of their fuzz of cotton fiber. Ben Clayton 

 of the famous Anderson, Clayton & Company developed 



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