The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1893-04-20
MAGIC COTTON seed.
AN IMPORTANT INDUSTRY IN THE
SOUTH.
The Uses to Which the Cotton
Plant and It's Products Are Put
Are Many and Wonderful-Rub-
Der from Cotton Seed Oil.
Savannah News.l

trolled by great corporations ahd IN
which millions OF dollars are invested.
The average cotton yield per acre
last year was a. bales, or one bale to
about as acres. This means about
800 pounds Of seed cotton, of which
900 pounds are seed. In 1000
pounds of seed there are about 80
bushels, calculating 80 pounds to the
bushel, which at the average price OF
seed nets 20 cents, or $500 to IA
acres, which added to the receipts for
bale OF cotton, brings the profit up
considerably.
BIG MONEY IN SEED.
\ prominent cotton firm in this
city collected during the past season
SII,5o6.I8 for two OF its customers
Georgia farmers, near Savannah-for
seed sold to oil mills. This amount
represents over SIS tons Of cotton
seed, and is merely one instance out
of numerous others like it. The in
dustry of raising the seed is growing
rapidly and about fourffths of the
seed produced last year was marketed,
where very little of it was sold two
years ago. The yield from the seed
counterbalances to a great extent the
depression to the farmer as result Of
low prices obtained from the lint
cotton, and instead of being dumped
back on the field for fertilizers it is
now almost all sold to the mills, and
commercial fertilizers are used to en-
rich the lands.
WILL INCREASE THE PRICE.
There is prospect, too, that cotton
seed will bring far better prices as the
products derived from them are in
creased. There has been discovered
a means of making India rubber from
the oil of the seed, and experiments
are now being conducted in the
vicinity of this city with view of
making the process cheap enough to
be profitable. In fact, good deal
of the product has been successfully
put on the market. The India rubber
is said to be the genuine article, and
is pronounced as good as that which
comes from the juice of the oriental
rubber tree The seed which will
produce an oil which is one of the
most excellent and wholesome foods
yet discovered, meal which is perfect
stock food, hull which can hardly
be excelled as fertilizer, and besides
all these an oil which promises to yield
rubber shoes, coats, hose and the
various other articles made from the
Indian gum, promises one day to yield
an industry which will rival in impor-
lance the cotton industry itself.
NO LIMIT TO IT.
No certain limit can be set to its
development, and there is no predict
ing what other products may be ex-
traCted from it. There are few peo-
| pie who are aware that the source OF
most of their fruit havoring extract is
the black and sluggish coal tar, yet
| such is the case, and chemists are now
working to draw quinine from the
same source. There is a possibility
that some day the cotton seed industry
may be the prime yield of the cotton
| plant.
The report that the large sale of the
commercial fertilizers this year means
an increased cotton acreage, and con-
sequently reduced price, is good
argument on its face, but the fact is
that most of the seed formerly used
as fertilizer on the cotton fields have
been marketed during the past season.,
and there was nothing to do but supply
their place with the commercial
article.
SELL SEED AND BUY FERTILIZERS.
The profit in the seed has been so
great, even at the price they now
bring, that the farmers make a great
deal by selling them and using COM
mercial fertilizers, which answer al
most as well. Thus the cotton in
dustry has called forth an increase in
the fertilize business, and in that way
has indirectly built up another in
dustry.
The latest development in the
cotton seed industry is perhaps the
cultivation of the lintless cotton plant
IN Texas, from which there is a much
larger yield of seed but no lint what
ever. The Mo,nias Nez0s has just
received a sample of these seed from
Mr.. &. Menelas, formerly of Savannah,
but now of Galveston.
THE LINTLESS COTTON PLANT.
The plant which produces the seed
is similar to the ordinary cotton plant,
but can stand a greater degree of
drought. The seed, which grow in
pods or balls, are smaller than the
seed of the ordinary cotton plant, and
have not quite so large a kernel, but
the large increase in the yield COM
pensate for the small size. The plant,
1t IS claimed, produces from 200 to
400 bushels of seed alone to the acre.
At that rate the culture of the lintless
cotton would pay far better than the
ordinary cotton crop.
During the coming season the pros
poets are favorable for a somewhat in
creased cotton acreage over last year,
but the total yield will hardly be as
large as it was in 1891. The price
of seed has advanced with the in
creased demand for them, and the
probability is that almost the entire
crop will be marketed during the COM
ing season.
y SECRET PROCESS.