Miscellaneous. 



430 



[Nov. 1906- 



Note 1.— According to chemical analysis of each, 886 pounds of cotton meal 

 are aboxit the equivalent, in content of plant food, to 2,000 pounds of cottonseed. 

 But owing to the superior mechanical condition of the meal and its consequently 

 greater, or more prompt, availability, it is safe to assume that 800 pounds of meal 

 are the full equivalent to one ton of seed. Therefore, whatever excess above 

 800 pounds of meal the farmer can get in exchange for a ton of seed, or by selling 

 the seed and buying meal. 



The fourth experiment, also performed in 1906, was made on cotton, and 

 the residts were considerably less unfavorable to the use of cottonseed directly 

 as a fertilizer. I omit the tables as before and give only the essential points and 

 results. I quote from Bulletin No. 70, issued in December, 1905 : — 



in this experiment the cotton seed and meal and all other ingredients were 

 carefully analyzed. The normal formula— 355 pounds of acid phosphate (17 per 

 cent.) ; 177 pounds of cottonseed meal ; and 25 pounds of muriate of potash, per 

 acre, was applied to the odd-numbered plots of five rows each on a one-acre section 

 of land. On the even numbered plots were applied enough crushed cottonseed to 

 supply exactly the same amount of nitrogen per acre as was contained in the 177 

 pounds of cotton meal. Allowance was made for the small quantities of phosphoric 

 acid and potash contained in the seed and in the meal, and a sufficient quantity 

 of acid phosphate and muriate of potash was added to the 409 pounds of seed to 

 make the two formulas — one containing cottonseed meal and the other crushed 

 cottonseed — as nearly as practicable equal to each other in content of the three 

 valuable elements. 



The cost of each formula, based on $23 per ton for meal and $16 per ton 

 of seed, is shown in column 8 of Table No. XI., netting an excess of $1'14 per acre 

 in the cost of the cottonseed formula. 



The average yield per acre of the crushed cottonseed plats was 1,155 and 

 of the cotton meal plots 1,157 pounds of seed cotton — a difference of only two pounds. 



The excess cost of the cottonseed formula per acre being $1*14, to which 

 add the value of the two pounds of seed cotton, or say 8 cents equals $1*22 

 represents the actual loss incurred in using 409 pounds of cottonseed — say one-fifth 

 of a ton— crushed and balanced by appropriate amounts of muriate and acid 

 phosphate, and applied as a fertilizer to one acre of cotton. Of course $1*22 

 multiplied by 5 equals $610, would correctly express the loss on each ton of cotton- 

 seed so used. 



The more favorable, or rather the less unfavorable, results from the use 

 of the cottonseed in this case, compared with those in the corn experiment of the 

 same year, were doubtless due to two facts : (1) The year 1905 was exceptionally 

 favorable for corn and unfavorable for cotton ; and (2) cotton, requiring a much 

 longer time to mature, the crushed cottonseed yielded up a larger proportion of 

 its plant food to the cotton crop than to the corn crop. 



It may be urged, however, that the cottonseed will add a considerable 

 amount of humus to the soil and will gradually build up and improve its productive- 

 ness. To this it may be replied that the amount of vegetable matter supplied to 

 the soil by an ordinary application of cottonseed would be insignificant and not 

 enough to produce any material effect. Moreover, the value of the cotton hulls, 

 which would contain all the humus-producing ingredients of the seed not contained 

 in the meal, are far too valuable as animal food to be used as an amendment to 

 the soil. The farmer could not afford to apply to the soil as an nmendment or 

 humus producer a material selling at from $6 to $8 a ton for feeding cattle, and 

 probably worth more. 



