SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



and New Mexico, wherever cattle loom large on the 

 landscape, they even ship in more meal from mills in 

 other sections to satisfy their local customers. Caking 

 has revamped the oil mills almost as thoroughly as it 

 has the feed lots. 



Mother Nature herself set up the frame within which 

 the pattern of this cottonseed industry has been drawn. 

 Produced over a wide area, cottonseed accumulated as 

 a by-product at the cotton gins. These were scattered 

 throughout the entire Cotton Belt, spotted in the center 

 of a five-mile radius, just about as far as a planter can 

 haul his seed-cotton in a wagon with a pair of mules. 

 Within larger circles, so as to draw upon seed collected 

 at a number of gins, are the oil mills. 



During recent years the basic radius of both gin and 

 mill has been lengthening. The mule is being hustled 

 off the road by the motor. The five-mile limit has been 

 raised, and then raised again, by the larger truck-drawn 

 load which means more miles and fewer trips. At the 

 same time, over large areas, less and less cotton is being 

 grown. 



Wider areas and fewer bales of cotton have ganged 

 up on the ginners, closing many of them, encouraging 

 fewer and bigger and better operations. The 19,195 

 gins of 1923 have been whittled down to 12,033 in 1943, 

 down to not more than 10,000 by the end of the war. 

 So lint-hungry are the battling survivors that some of 

 the more aggressive have gone out into the cotton fields 



68 



