The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-04-26
SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL.
The Romance of Cottonseed.

Was ever there a history, this side
of Cinderella. of the uprising of hu-
mainly, like that of the cottonseed?
See!
For seventy years despised as a
nuisance and burned or dumped as
garbage.
Then discovered 10 be the very food
for which the soil was hungering. and
reluctantly admitted 10 the rank of
ugly uili les.
Shortly afterwards found to be nu-
trltious food for beast rs well as soil.
and thereupon treated with something
like respect
Once admitted to the circle of farm
husbandries. found TO hold thirty-fi five
gallons of pure oil to the ton. worth
in its crude state S14 to the ton, or
$40 000 900 for the whole crop of seed.
But then system was devised for
refining this oil up TO a value of one
dollar gallon. and the frugal Ital-
ians placed q cask of it at the root of
every olive tree and then defied the
Borean breath of the Alps.
And then experience showed that
the ton of cot onseed was better fer
tilizer and better stock food when
robbed of its thirty-tive gallons of oil
than before.
And that the hulls of the seed made
the best of fuel for feeding the oil
mill engine!
And that the ashes of the hulls
scooped from the engines drift had
the highest commercial value as
potash!
Ard that the 'refusc" of the whole
made the best and purest soap stock
to carry to tho toilet the perfumes of
Lubin or Colgatc!
About this time we began 10 spell
cottonseed with capital letters.
And how it travelled abroad in lis
various dresses! AS meal cakes it
whitened the meadows of England
with tho woolly fleeces and fat
tened the British cattle under
the oaks; it spurtcd on the
stoves of the Dltch in lard; it
glistened in the cafes of Paris as olive
oils under seals and signatures it
couldn't pronounce to save its life.
and from under the bikes in Holl and
it went forth to parade in all the
bravery of butter and butterine.
In our own country it renewed the
wasting strength of Southern field S,
and clad them with wilderness that
would shame the fleeces of England,
or yellow that would pale the deeces
of Argonsuts. 1t knocked the West
ern hog into spots. and poured the
Western lard out of the frying-pan
into the fire. 1t furnished the Ar
mours and Fairbankses with pure
substitute for the rancid fat they had
been shipping us, and suggested the
possibility of clean and cheap lard.
And about this time Congress jumped
onto cottonseed with both feet, and
proposed to check its further career by
prohibitory tax.
And now comes gentleman of this
city with a process by which he ex-
tracts thirty gallons of fine oil from
every ton of cotton-seed meal after the
oil mills hava done with it. In the
'tailings' of the oil mills he finds this
unexpected and ample store, which
he deity extracts with naphtha, leav-
ing the meal more nutritious rs food
for beast or field than before he took
$40 per ton from it.
This process he has proved repeat
edly in his laboratory, and next week
will approve in wider practice in a
mill erected for the purpose near
Atlanta This invention will add
forty per cent. to the quantity of oil
taken by the process from given
quantity of seed.
More than this, it suggests the
splendid possibilities yet undeveloped
for this rural Cinderella that has risen
all SO swiftly from the ashes and the
waste heap!-Auantd Constitution.