COTTON 
293 
When cottonseed meal is used simply as a fertil- 
izer, therefore, there is a loss of $18.75 on every 
ton thus utilized — $18.75 a ton actually thrown 
away by the cotton farmer who is not thrifty 
enough to raise stock and to get all the profits from 
his seed. There is no proposition less open to 
argument than that on every farm on which meal 
is used as a fertilizer, we should first feed that meal 
to cattle so as to secure the double value. 
And then also bear in mind that our cotton lands 
need animal manures, more than fertilizers, for 
whenever and wherever used, stable manures show 
a greater efficiency than their actual nitrogen, 
phosphorus, and potassium content would indicate. 
This is because they supply humus so much needed 
by all our lands, sick as they are from the one- 
crop system. 
Much of the meal now produced in the South 
finds its way to the dairy farms of Germany, 
England and the northern and western parts of 
our own country. 
Rich in protein, which is the basis of milk pro- 
duction, meal is naturally winning much favor as 
a dairy ration. A dairy cow with a capacity of 
three gallons of milk daily, requires two and one- 
half pounds of digestible protein. She can get 
this only from the protein of the food she con- 
sumes. Oil or starch or fiber will not make pro- 
tein. You cannot convert lead into gold by any 
process, nor can you take foods like timothy hay, 
orchard grass, corn stover, corn and like products, 
and make them furnish protein for the milk ration. 
Cottonseed meal stands foremost of all vegetable 
feeding stuffs in the quantity of digestible protein it 
contains. It follows then, that the cotton farmer, 
since he produces meal and since he produces the 
