COTTON 285 



The small mill consumes all the way from two to 

 five thousand tons of seed each season and may use 

 as much as 25 to 50 tons each day. At the promi- 

 nent railroad centers are mills of larger capacity 

 using from 150 to 200 tons of seed daily, or from 

 twenty to fifty thousand tons each season. These 

 make large profits since seed can be shipped from 

 any distance and the product delivered without 

 great expense to the mill. 



As a commercial enterprise, this is all very well, 

 but the seed is the product of the farm, and should 

 be consumed on the farm ; there is no other system 

 that is not actual land-robbing. Consequently, 

 from its nature the oil mill is still a local factor, a 

 community factor, and a farm factor, and is just as 

 important in the disposition of this part of the 

 cotton crop as is the shredding machine or the 

 threshing machine for the diposition of the corn 

 or wheat crop, the only difference being that 

 the mill is stationary and we carry the seed to it, 

 while shredding and threshing machines go 

 through the community and work on each in- 

 dividual farm. 



With this idea accepted, it clearly follows that 

 the cotton oil mill is indispensably connected with 

 the community, and sooner or later the local co- 

 operative enterprise must become the rule wher- 

 ever cotton is grown. 



CRUDE OIL 



The operations of the oil mill have to do with the 

 production of cake and hulls on one hand, and with 

 the production of oil on the other. We may say 

 that the mill itself came as a means of securing oil 

 from the seed, and that meal and hulls are a by- 



