1 May, 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 381 
heads and thought they looked wise and predicted dire things to happen because 
cotton and wheat in all things did not agree. Here are the figures representing 
the acreage and yield of each :— 
Wheat, acres planted, 39,465,000; bushels, 539,000,000 ; yield per acre, 
13:43. Cotton seed, acres planted, 24,319,500; bushels, 363,261,000 ; yield 
per acre, 14°9 bushels. 
From those figures one would think that in the commercial world cotton 
seed had not received sufficient attention. 
As a food cotton seed is of more value than wheat, and is to be a greater 
factor in commerce than wheat. In fact, cotton is one of the most important 
factors in business both north and south. The growth of the cotton-mill 
industry within the United States within the last ten years has been large. 
Here are the figures taken from the Textile World, of Boston :— 
VALUE OF THE Crop. 
When we consider the prices paid to the farmers for seed last season, the 
value of the meal and hulls converted into first-class beef, the oil shipped to 
all parts of the world, and the fertilisers manufactured from the meal, the 
figures run up into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Every dollar so 
converted is so much added each year to the wealth of the South, both from an 
agricultural and industrial standpoint. The meal cake, aside from its use as a 
cheap source for deriving ammonia to make up complete fertilisers, is being 
used by the hundreds of thousands of tons in fattening beef cattle both in this 
country and in Europe. Meal cake has become a strong and active competitor 
in England and Germany against linseed meal for cattle feeding in those 
countries, and each year many shiploads are sent across the Atlantic to cattle- 
raisers in the old country. The oil is being largely used as an article for food, 
taking the place of butter, lard, and olive oil. It is clean, wholesome, and 
nutritious. Yet the possibilities of these by-products of our cotton fields are 
yet in their infancy, and expert oilmen tell me that the time is not far distant 
when a ton of cotton seed will sell for more money to the farmer than a 500-lb. 
bale of middling cotton. The time will come when the farmer, by studying the 
true value of his seed, will sell only the oil to the mills, and by imtelligently 
utilising the meal and hulls on his farm, double and treble the present prices 
now being received. Our people are still in too big a hurry to sell their seed 
for what they are offered in the open markets, without a knowledge of its true 
value, merely to get a little ready cash to pay for ginning and picking out the 
next bale of cotton. 
HEALTHEULNESS OF CoTron-SEED OIn. 
The State Analyst of New York, having been requested by the secretary 
of the State Board of Health to give his opinion with regard to the wholesome- 
ness of cotton-seed oil, and of lard and lard compounds into which this oil 
enters as a component part, replied: “I am clearly of the opinion that cotton- 
seed oil, whether used singly or comingled.with other oils or fats, is a perfectly 
wholesome and nutritious food, and is as easily digested or assimilated as any 
of the commonly employed fats. In support of this view, the opinion of 
numberless writers upon the subject, and of experts in chemistry and 
hysiology, might be adduced. Throughout the cotton-growing States it has 
He for a long time very largely used, and the medical faculty of Arkansas 
say that it is preferred to the other fats in many respects, agreeing with the 
most delicate stomachs, whether used in baking or frying; and that not one 
instance has ever been given of the health being in any way impaired by the 
use, however free, of cotton-seed oil in food. They say that thousands of hands 
employed in the cotton oilmills are in the habit of making their dinners on the 
crude oil by dipping their bread into it, and some of them actually drink it, 
pnd yet from this free use of it nothing has ever resulted but the best of 
ealth.” 
