186 COTTON CULTURE. 



thick, creamy lather, and possesses a detergent property 

 superior to any other soap known. 



" In order to test its washing qualities under the most 

 adverse circumstances, I prepared a piece of coarse bag- 

 ging by saturating it with grease from the wheel of a dray, 

 rubbing it well into the fabric and drying it. I then made 

 a strong, cold, salt brine, and in this liquid, with the cot- 

 ton-seed oil soap, washed the bagging perfectly clean, 

 with little labor, leaving the fabric uninjured. I know of 

 no soap that will endure so severe a test. 



" As a shaving soap it is unsurpassed for its rich and 

 emollient lather. The oil used was clarified, of a pale 

 straw color ; some lots were almost colorless. 



" My attempts to manufacture extemporaneous or " cold- 

 made soap," invariably failed. A dark, gummy liquid, 

 would exude from the soap after some weeks standing, 

 which rendered it unsalable." 



Mr. Harrison believes refined cotton-seed oil, at sixty 

 cents a gallon, to be the cheapest and most durable soap 

 stock known to commerce. He continued to use it freely 

 as long as it could be obtained in large quantities, and, up 

 to the time of the beginning of war of the rebellion, was 

 the second largest consumer in this country. 



Notwithstanding the variety of uses to which this oil 

 was applied, and the quantities purchased by a few large 

 dealers and manufacturers, the demand was never fully up 

 to the supply ; and the oil pressers always worked against 

 a dull market, and often were overstocked with oil, for 

 which they could find no purchasers. At this time about 

 50,000 tons of seed were consumed by the oil mills, yield- 

 ing, at the rate of 30 gallons per ton, about 1,500,000 gal 

 Ions of crude oil. Estimating the cotton cro for such 

 portions of the country as are most accessible to cheap 

 transportation at 3,000,000 bales, the seed available for 

 oil-making would amount to 1,500,000 tons, yielding 

 45,000,000 gallons of oil annually. The first and great 



