The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1882-10-12
TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The -tders for public printing now
at the government printing office,
Washington, will test all the resources
of that establishment in order to fill
them during the recess of Congress
The printing of the census publica-
tions alone is an enormous job. There
will be oter.thirty volumes, comprising
about $4,000 pages of the same size as
the Congressional Record. This will
be the largest single work ever turned
out, and this is no small job. The
Record has grown rapidly in size OF
late. The custom in the House of glv-
ing leave to print speeches not de-
livered sWells the Record considerably.
The use Of prepared foods has be-
come universal. A half century ago
condensed foods proper were unknown.
Prepared foods may be broadly classi-
fled thus l. Hermetically sealed, or
canned goods. 2. Desiccated and dried
foods. 8. Steam cooked condensed
foods. 4. Extracts of beef, mutton,
vegetables and fruits-or concentrated
foods. This grouping also indicates
the relative consumption, beginning
with canned goods as the highest.
Practically, all things edible in the
animal and vegetable kingdoms are
now canned. Desiccated and artifi-
ally driea7egetables and fruits are in
great variety, and embrace equally the
products of temperate and torrid zones.
Condensed foods cover the cereals fit
for table use. and milk, eggs, coffee and
chocolate, Extracts of beef aud NUT
tod, oftentimes in combination with
fruits, are principally used in hospitals
and by invalids, although well-known
extract ofabeef is largely used in hotels
and restaurants for making choice
soups. It will readily be seen that the
commercial value Of the preparations
contained in the four classes named is
very great
How much the South lost before the
war from the waste of cotton seed may
easily be estimated from the following
statistics. The amount of cotton pro
duced during the fifteen years from
1916 to 1870 was 46,675,59l bales, and
for every ySale of cotton there were
1900 pou4ds of seed, or three times
the weightIof the cotton itself. The
amount Of 5seed wasted was therefore
2S,005,S54S tons. The manufacture
of oil and It's products has created such
a demand flor cotton seed that the
price at the lcrushing mills was about
s1S per toatlast year, and will probably
average \ 20 in the future. AT
the latter fate the seed wasted during
the last fiftekn years beforethe war was
worth s5s&1o7o92. Probably that
amount repF Fesents not more than hall
the market >SIue of the manufactured
product eed. During the first
1 G etoos. klre yyar the anon nj
- sd was 6,433S, ,5555
bales, Rall part of the seed
| it yieldeS Atilized. The average
annual cottd crop is now not less thar
100000 bales, so that the amount Of
seed is 100000 tons, which at $40 pei
ton would Joe worth s74,OOO,OO0 al
wholesale. 1t is safe to place the value
Of the manufactured products of thai
amount of seed at $100,000,000. twill
be seen, therefore, that the wealth II
cotton seed is about equal to half th'
annual expense of the United States
government. When the nation manu-
factures all it's cotton, as well as util
ICES all its cotton seed. it's income fron
the cotton crop will be more thar
doubled.