150 
COTTON SEED, 
sues. The phosphates go ultimately to the seeds, and, in 
Indian corn and in wheat, concentrate wholly about the 
germs in their mucilage or "chits." Thus it is proved 
that every ingredient of cotton-seed cake acts as a nutri- 
ment to vegetation. 
Cotton seed are greedily devoured by cattle and hogs, 
and are found to be quite nutritive. Fresh seed may he 
fed to cattle, but they ought to undergo partial decom- 
position before being given to hogs. The fibre adhering 
to the new seed seems to irritate their air-passages, ex- 
citing cough and inflammation of the lungs, which not 
unfrequently terminate in death. 
A judicious use of cotton seed as food for animals will 
save the planter's corn, and enable him, if he is scarce of 
grain, to supply the demand made by his horses and mules 
as well as his family. It must not be supposed, however, 
fi-om what we have said, that cotton seed alone is sufficient 
for the nourishment of cattle and hogs, or for the pro- 
duction of good milk and good pork Nothing is equal 
to good corn. 
The usual method of applying cotton seed to the 
ground as a manure, is to pile it in the fields in heaps of 
ten bushels, so as to place about twenty bushels on an acre. 
This is usually done late in the fall or early in the winter, 
and by planting time the decomposed seed are ready for 
use. They are usually taken by the hands and deposited 
in the cotton drills and corn rows along with the sound 
seed. 
Cott'On-seed oil is used extensively for lubricating ma- 
chinery. It is also consumed in lamps, but does not afford 
as brilliant a light as coal oil. 
