1860,1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
395 
popular favor. It is only because the seed could 
be had for a song, that efforts have been made 
to extract oil from it, and to use the cake for 
feeding purposes. A very ingenious machine 
has been invented for hulling the seed, and we 
have cake and oil made from the hulled and un¬ 
hulled seed. The cotton seed oil is used for va¬ 
rious economical purposes, and the meal gives 
pretty general satisfaction so far as it is used. 
The crude oil is quoted in the prices current at 
about fifty cents a gallon, and the refined at about 
eighty. The meal has sold in Northern markets 
at about one dollar and fifty cents the hundred 
weight the past season. This we suppose to be 
the meal of the cake ground after the oil is ex¬ 
pressed. ' Of course the meal made from the 
seed before pressing, would be much more valua¬ 
ble for feeding purposes. Judging from the 
market prices of the oil and of the meal, cotton 
seed at the planter’s gin is not worth less than a 
dollar a bushel as an article of fodder. How far 
the corn mills would answer to grind cotton 
seed we are not able to say, but we should sup¬ 
pose they would make the meal sufficiently fine 
for feeding. Every large plantation has its own 
mill, generally at the gin-liouse, and the same 
machinery that makes corn meal would serve to 
make cotton seed meal. We should like to see 
some experiments made to establish this point. 
Our present belief is, that the cotton seed is 
worth a great deal more to the planter to feed to 
his cattle, than it would be to sell to the manu¬ 
facturer, or to work up himself into oil and cake 
for market. 
The system of husbandry pursued upon the 
cotton plantation, is rapidly destroying the soil, 
and deserves the reprobation of every intelligent 
cultivator. Nothing but cotton is sold from the 
plantation, and no pains are taken to make ma¬ 
nures, and to restore the wasting fertility of the 
soil. The use of cotton seed is some compensa¬ 
tion to the land for the constant drain upon it. It 
would be worth still more to the land if it could 
be passed through the bodies of animals, be 
mixed with muck or soil, and the compost be ap¬ 
plied to the cultivated fields. To turn the seed 
into oil and cake for market, would be only to 
hasten the destruction of the plantation, a pro¬ 
cess that is going on too fast already. 
If the plan of our correspondent is to make oil, 
and feed the cake upon bis plantation, that would 
indeed be a partial remedy, if the manure were 
saved. But we do not believe that the oil can be 
economically expressed where the meal of the 
ground seed (not the cake) is worth a dollar, or 
even seventy-five cents a bushel. What the cot¬ 
ton planter most needs, is not a new vegetable 
product to send to market, but more feeding stuff 
for his animals, a good system of saving manure, 
and applying it to his cultivated fields, to make 
amends for the drain of his great staple upon the 
soil. As he now manages, in any of the upland 
districts where the overflow of streams does not 
manure his lands for him, he is all the while dis¬ 
sipating his capital by selling the fertility of his 
soil, and doing nothing to restore it. He may in¬ 
crease his force of laborers, and his bank-stock, 
but at the end of a' term of years, he generally 
finds that he has lost his plantation. The land 
that once produced one and two bales of cotton 
to the acre, will not produce a quarter of that 
yield ; will not indeed pay for cultivation, and is 
turned out to old field. If he can purchase no 
new land in his vicinity, he must sell out, and go 
to Texas, or some other new country. 
It is this wasteful husbandry that has desolated 
the older cotton States, and that is now pouring 
sue' x tide of emigration into Texas, where the 
same process will be repeated, unless a wiser 
husbandry prevail. Nothing is worthy of the 
name of husbandry, that does not enrich the land 
as well as its owner. ‘It is worse than Vandal¬ 
ism to dissipate the inheritance of our children. 
Husbandry will so use the soil that they shall 
have a richer possession than we have inherited. 
Tim Bunker on Feeding with Oil Meal. 
“ It’s no use to try it,” said Jotham Sparrow- 
grass, as he poked his cane into the tub where I 
was preparing a mess for my fattening cattle. 
“ No use to try what, said 11” 
“Why, to fat cattle with iled meal. You see 
the thing has been tried, time and agin, over on 
the Island, and failed. Never coaid make the 
cattle eat the stinking stuff. Job Woodhull, and 
Zophar Mills, both tried it one Summer. You see 
they had heern a great deal about feeding ani¬ 
mals with ile meal, and they took it into their 
heads to make a lot out of fish ile and Indian 
meal. They had a plenty of ile from their fish 
works, and they put in about five gallons to a 
barrel of meal, and mixed it up well. They tried 
to get oxen to eat it, but it was no go. They 
kept trying every thing with it for a week or 
more, and by that time it was about the stinken- 
est mess that was ever got up on the Island, 
where they are famous for smells, especially in 
the fish season. I guess they have’nt heerd the 
the last of that ile meal yet.” 
“ The oxen were sensible brutes for not touch¬ 
ing such stuff',” said I. “ But you see, Uncle 
Jotham,this is not that kind of oil meal. 
“ Du tell!” 
“You know there are certain kinds of plants 
that produce oil-bearing seeds, and when they 
are pressed for the sake of the oil, a cake re¬ 
mains, which is good for manure or for proven¬ 
der. They press rape seed and the castor oil 
bean, and the refuse cake makes a Very good 
manure. They press flax seed to get linseed oil 
for painting, and cotton seed to get oil for burn¬ 
ing, for making soap, and other purposes. The 
cake that remains is ground up into meal, and is 
fed to cattle.” 
“ Well, I never paid much attention to it. But 
I allers thot oil meal was such as they made on 
the Island.” 
This talk with Uncle Jotham occurred more 
than a year ago, when I first begun to use the 
meal made from linseed and cotton seed cake. 
I had not much faith in it myself, when I begun 
to use it, though I ought to have had. For lin¬ 
seed cake has been used for fattening cattle, and 
various feeding purposes, for several generations. 
It is astonishing to see how little faith people have 
in any thing they have not seen and tried. 
In England, if a farmer has got to purchase 
feeding stuff, he is certain to invest in oil cake. 
In this country, it is pretty certain to be corn, or 
oats. Almost all the oil cake made in this coun¬ 
try is sent to a foreign market, because very few 
of our farmers have tried it. Once in a while 
we find an imported farmer like John Johnston 
of Geneva, or the dairy farmers, using oil cake 
for feeding. But not one farmer in a hundred 
has ever seen it or tried it. As a rule, they have 
no faith in buying any thing to keep up their cat¬ 
tle in high condition. They sell grain, and feed 
out hay and grass. These, no doubt, are the sta¬ 
ple articles of fodder, but all Cattle will do better 
to have some addition to hay and grass. I have 
always fed every thing I could raise bn rhy farm, 
oats, buckwheat, rye, and roots, and have hb 
doubt it pays. If any body can use grain to a 
profit, the farmer can. The man who buys his 
grain expects to make a profit on it, and in most 
cases, does so. Why should not the farmer feed 
his grain and make the profit himself! If there 
is a profit in feeding twenty bushels of corn to a 
bullock, of say, three dollars, the farmer, especi¬ 
ally if he live near a good market, can make the 
profit a little better than any body else. He wants 
the manure for his land, and the manure is on 
the soil where it will be plowed in. There is no 
expense for carting it three or four miles from 
the village, or of shipping it fifty miles, or more, 
from the city. 
I always liked to feed grain, corn meal, oats, 
etc , but I think now the oil meal pays better 
than even the grains. The linseed meal comes 
pretty high, and that is one great objection to its 
use. But the cotton seed meal comes even cheap¬ 
er than corn meal, and I think does blitter than 
linseed, pound for pound. 
I had not used it a month, before Jane Frink 
came along one morning and hailed me. 
“ What ye ben dujn to yer cattle lately, Mr. 
Bunker ! I see the hair looks mighty sleek and 
shiny as ef it had been combed with a fine tooth 
comb, and had some intment on tu it.” 
“You are right neighbor, but the ointment was 
applied on the inside. I have been feeding with 
oil meal.” 
“ What upon airth is ile meal, never heern of 
sich stuff.” 
“ Well there is a fellow up here in Shadtown 
has started the business of pressing cotton seed 
oil, and sells the meal from the ground cake, to 
the farmers.” 
Jake Frink was about right in describing the 
glossy coat of my yoke of oxen, though, perhaps, 
I did not do full credit to John’s curry comb, and 
wisp of straw. They are Devons, and John takes 
a good deal of pride in polishing them down, es¬ 
pecially when he drives a load of wood to market 
in Shadtown. Whether any body looks out ol the 
window, at the young farmer’s team, or at his 
wood, I am not able to say. He is uncommon 
fond of going to see Sally at the parsonage, I 
have noticed lately, and the span of Black Hawks 
are quite as shiny as the oxen- Probably he don’t 
want to disagrace his sister, when he is in town. 
I have been trying this feed for a year or more, 
and think I get more for my money, than in any 
kind of feed that I buy. It comes considerable 
Cheaper than corn meal, and goes further in 
making milk, butter, cheese, beef, mutton, pork, 
etc. It is excellent for working cattle, making 
them shed their coats early in the Spring, and 
keeping them in good flesh. It increases the pro¬ 
duct of milk from twenty to thirty per cent, de¬ 
pending, somewhat, upon the condition of the 
cow. I have found about two quarts a day 
enough for a single animal. If fed too liberally, 
it gives the milk ah unpleasant flavor. It keeps 
the cattle in good thriving condition. In making 
beef, a larger quantity should be used ; there is 
no bad taste imparted to the meat. 
Almost all cattle are a little shy in eating it at 
first, and, in this respect, they are pretty much 
like their owners in buying it. But if a small 
quantity is mixed with some palatable food, tley 
w’ill eat it, and soon become very fond of it. One 
great advantage in using this, and the linseed 
cake meal, is the excellent quality of the manure 
It seems to do execution on the land like hog 
manure. I have never had such a yard of ma¬ 
nure as I carted out this last Spring; and I think 
it must be owing, in part, to the two tuns of Cot 
ton seed meal lised by my cattle last Winter. It 
would have made a great different^ in the looks 
