276 
COTTON 
some States laws were passed requiring ginners to 
clear away the seed, the rotting piles otherwise be- 
coming offensive to the neighbors ! 
Now, however, the value of this part of the crop 
has assumed enormous proportions, and offers a 
revenue to the Southern farmer not inconsiderable, 
even when compared with the value of cotton lint 
itself. 
Seed cotton contains about one-third lint and 
two-thirds seed. The crop of 1905 of 10,697,013 
bales of cotton would mean about 5,850,000 tons 
of seed. This valued at $16.00 per ton, a reasonable 
estimate, gives us a commercial value of $88,600,000 
in the raw state, while this value of course is greatly 
increased in the finished product. 
And to think that this product as we have just 
said once rotted at the gin or was washed away in 
creeks and rivers — forever lost to the soil and to the 
world ! 
WHAT IS IN A TON OF SEED COTTON 
Only an estimate can be made, since the pro- 
portion of lint to seed varies with different varieties 
and different soils ; but taking the general rule that 
"cotton thirds itself," in one ton of seed cotton 
there should be 665 pounds of lint and 1335 pounds 
of seed. This seed would yield when prepared 
and manufactured about 489 pounds of meal, 18 
pounds of linters, 187 pounds of oil, 561 pounds of 
hulls, and 80 pounds of waste material such as 
water, dust, and sand. 
With the exception of the waste, all of these are 
commercial commodities, and to-day find markets 
wherever fertilizers are used, live stock are grown, 
or civilized people are known. 
