The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-03-19
COTTON-SEED MEAL.
The Best and Most Economical Fertilizer
for Southern Farmers.

for Southern Farmers.
Cotton-seed meal is coming into gen.
eral use among the farmers of the
South, for fertilizing purposes, as they
learn it is a more effective manure
than the whole seed. It used to be the
custom to apply it alone to such crops
as corn and cotton; but of late years it
has become generally known that its
effects are obtained most advanta-
geously when it is mixed with kainit
and acid phosphate.
The meal contains nearly per cent.
Of ammonia, but only q of phosphoric
acid and q of potash, and therefore
when acid phosphate, which contains
49, per cent. of phosphoric acid, and
kainit with IS per cent. of potash are
added, it will be seen that very pow
erful compound is formed. The usual
proportions are 1000 pounds of the
meal, 500 pounds of the acid phosphate
and 500 pounds of kainit; and when
mixed together the total cost of the
mixture will be about $22 per ton.
1t must be borne in mind that the
three chemical ingredients named are
those that are especially valuable to
crops, and must be contained in all
manures that pretend to contain the
requirements of plants. And the ex-
perience of cotton farmers has demon
strated that none of the guanos that
are sold for even much higher prices
can approach this compound in effect
i've value.
The addition of ton of stable manure
forms, with the other three ingredients,
the very best compost known in the
South. This compost, which is practi-
cally what is known elsewhere as EUR
mans formula" has been in use in
South Carolina since 1877, but has been
known in Georgia and the other States
during the past five years only. 1t is
simply in accordance with common
sense to mix together, in due proper
tons, the materials that contain the
elements needed by crops and it is
what any farmer can do for himself.
The meal is more valuable for man.
ure than the whole seed, because it is
more Immediately available to the
plants, and contains a larger per-
centage of fertilizing matter in proper
ton to the bulk. When the whole seed
is used, considerable portion of it
does not rot, but dries and shrivels, Or
rots so slowly that the growing crop
fails to benefit by it. And in all cases
the oil in the seed retards the rotting
greatly; while this oil has IN itself no
manurial value whatever, but only rep
resents so much value wasted when the
whole seed is used.
In ton of seed-about "a bushels
there are about So gallons of oil, worth
IS cents per gallon; and therefore
where whole seed is used about 1925
actual value is thrown away; besides
which, one ton of the whole seed is
really not as effective as the 800 por ads
of meal that could be obtained from it.
Accurately one ton of whole seed has
an effective manurial value to the soil
of 1880, while the 800 pounds of meal
that it contains has an effective value
of S23.
Many of the oil mills, and there are
1876 of them in the South, offer to ex-
change with farmers one ton of meal
for two tons of whole cotton seed, and
to pay the transportation both ways.
Wherever this can be done it is very
advantageous arrangement for the
farmers. But it is suicidal policy for
them to sell their seed outright to the
mills; for very few of them will ever
buy back the meal, and their lands will
be permanently impoverished. If they
will persist in selling their seed, they
should at least realize that even in its
whole state it has an effective value to
the soil of fully thirty cents per bushel,
and when they are induced to part
with it for less price, they are i'm
posed upon. Farm and Homestead.