COTTON CULTURE. 181 



with the seed of ,/Sea Island cotton, to which the lint does 

 not adhere closely, and which, therefore, may be delivered 

 from the gin as clean as the pericarp of a chestnut, a more 

 satisfactory yield of oil was obtained. The result, how- 

 ever, was not ybf a character that would induce manufac- 

 turers to engage regularly in the production of cotton-seed 

 oil. A few years later, mechanics constructed and patent- 

 ed machines that successfully removed the lint and peri- 

 carp from the kernel, after which, by means of a revolv- 

 ing screw, the hulled seed was separated from the trash. 



About the year 1855, some of the largest linseed oil 

 mills in the country were converted into cotton-seed oil 

 mills, and very soon new and extensive establishments 

 were erected expressly for the manufacture of this oil. The 

 principal and most successful of these mills were located, 

 one in Providence, R. I., one in St. Louis, two in "New 

 Orleans, and two in Memphis; of these the Providence, 

 one of the Xew Orleans, and the St. Louis mills alone 

 survived the war. 



The supply of raw material for these establishments 

 was drawn wholly from the immediate line of the great 

 navigable water-courses. The mills at Xew Orleans, at 

 Memphis, and that at St. Louis, readily contracted with 

 the steamboat lines to carry cotton-seed at very low rates 

 of freight on return trips, when other freight in that di- 

 rection was very scarce ; the Providence Company made 

 similar contracts with sailing vessels from New Orleans 

 and other ports, both along the Atlantic and on the Gulf 

 Coast. There was never any lack of seed ; for all these 

 mills, running at their greatest capacity, could not con- 

 sume the seed that could be delivered, conveniently, upon 

 the banks of the Mississippi River and its lower tribu- 

 taries. 



The seed was purchased only by weight, and was usu- 

 ally contracted for at ton rates. The price varied, before the 

 war, from four dollars to eight dollars per ton, delivered 



