1908.] Husk in Decorticated Cotton Cake. 367 



utilized for the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, the ultimate 

 by-product being cotton-seed cake. 



In obtaining the oil the seed is first screened and well cleaned 

 of foreign substances, sand and dust, it is then passed through 

 large gins which remove the short fibres or linters, delinting 

 being necessary to remove the down which otherwise would 

 absorb the oil and prevent it from being extracted. The 

 process also renders the seed easier to plant and improves 

 the hulls for stock feeding. 



From the linter the seed passes to the huller, a strong cylinder 

 furnished with knives, which cut the seed to pieces, the loose 

 kernel dropping out. The chopped mass of seed, kernel and hull 

 is then screened, most of the hulls being retained at this stage. 

 The kernels fall into a box and pass on to a separator or shaker,, 

 and here the short down adhering to the remaining hulls causes 

 them to felt or stick together and prevents them falling through 

 with the kernels. In the case of Egyptian and Sea Island 

 cotton the seed is not provided with this down, and the kernel 

 and hull cannot be separated as thoroughly as is done with 

 the American Upland seed ; as a consequence the oil and 

 cake made from them is of inferior quality. 



The kernels are next crushed by heavy rollers which mash 

 them into thin flakes. Cooking in steam-jacketed kettles 

 follows, and the kernels are subsequently shaped into cakes 

 wrapped in camel's haircloth and then subjected to a pressure 

 of 3,000 or 4,000 lb. per square inch by hydraulic power.. 

 This removes the oil, and the cakes, pressed as solid as boards, 

 are taken from the press, stripped of the cloths and finally 

 stacked to dry. To make cotton-seed meal these cakes, 

 when dry, are passed through a cake crusher, which breaks 

 them into fragments of a size suitable to be fed to a mill. 

 The mill grinds these fragments into a fine meal, which is. 

 put up in sacks. Sometimes the meal is bolted to separate 

 it from small pieces of the hull, which, being tough and: 

 leathery, are not readily ground up. 



The cakes referred to above constitute decorticated cotton 

 cake, the hulls of the seed having been removed before the 

 expressing of the oil. Undecorticated cotton cake, on the 

 other hand, is made from the whole seed without removal of 

 the hulls. 



