CHAPTER XXX. 



COTTON SEED : ONCE AN OUTCAST NOW A PRINCE 



When cotton is gathered it consists of both fiber 

 and seed. These two products grow together, the 

 fiber out of the seed, and remain together until the 

 gin separates them. Up to this point the combined 

 products are known as seed cotton. From the gin, 

 lint or fiber (or cotton as it is now called), leaves in 

 the bale to be returned to the farm, or goes direct to 

 the market for immediate sale. 



The seed, however, are still the property of the 

 farmer, and may be carried back to the farm, 

 where they are valuable for feed or fertilizer, or they 

 may be sold to the oil mill. As a matter of fact, 

 about one-third of the cotton seed supply is now 

 sold to the oil mill, to be converted into oil, meal 

 and hulls, and the remaining two-thirds are car- 

 ried back to the farm for feed, fertilizer, and a 

 smaller quantity for seed for the next year's crop. 



At one time cotton seed were altogether wasted : 

 manurial value was not considered ; and as a feed they 

 had never a thought. In many places in the old 

 days cotton gins were purposely built on streams in 

 order that the water might carry away the great ac- 

 cumulations of supposedly worthless seed; and in 



(275) 



