The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-06-21
COTTON SEED OIL.
Is There IA Combination of the Cot
ton Seed Oil Mills.

ton Seed Oil Mills.
From New York Journal of Commerce.
The talk of combine in cotton seed oil
is still the absorbing topic of CONVERSE
ton in that trade. But it is still largely
a mystery, and no two men have the same
idea of what has been accomplished or
of what kind of a combine is being at
tempted, if any at all. This much, how
ever, is a fact: The Virginia and Caro-
lima Chemical Company of Richmond.
Va, a rich fertilizer company which uses
cotton seed meal largely for its ammonia
in manufacturing it's phosphates, instead
of blood, bought the Atlantic Cotton Oil
Company of Sumter S. c., about ten
days ago, with it's four mills and one re-
finery, and has also bought the Inter
state Company of Georgia which is a
good-sized company, but not so large as
the Atlantic. These are undisputed facts.
II is also undisputed that the same chem
ical company has been asking for options
on the stock of the Southern Cotton Oil
Company at 90, par $50 and is believed
ITO have secured controlling interest
though it has not yet exercised its OPP
ton. Part of the trade believe this move
is to secure its own supplies of cotton
seed meal by the chemical company, and
also to find investment for its surplus
money. While others thINk it is acting
as agent of the American Lnseed Oil
Company, which is controlled by the
Standard Oil people, in order to secure
cotton seed oil for new process, called
the Moulton process, of making cotton
seed oil into a substitute for linseed oil
for paint, which the lfnseed company is
said to have acquired. 1t is also said to
have built factory on Staten Island
(Which, by the way, is said to have been
painted with this cotton seed oil paint)
for the manufacture of this kind of oil,
and that it has already bought 5000 bar
rels of cotton seed oil in this market for
that purpose, and is about to begin its
manufacture on a scale of importance
enough ITO put it in the market.
The trade think that if this be true the
chemical company would take the meal
product of the mills it has bought and the
linseed oil company the oil they would
produce from this new product. But this
would not require the plants of the South
ern Company, which is the second to the
American Company in size and in which
the Standard Oil people are believed to
have an interest, if not a controlling one.
Should the options. therefore, on the
Southern be used there are those who pc
lieve this move would foreshadow a gen.
eneral consolidation of the whole cot
tonseed oil industry, as the American
could be easily taken over after the other
companies had been secured under thrs
blind of the chemical company, which
could effect such purchases much cheaper
than any rival interest. But this would
involve the buying up of a half dozen
more large refineries besides, if not also
a large number of crushers all over the
South. which would be a gigantic Job.
This is not generally believed to be the
purpose of the late purchases, yet the
trade admits it's possibility and await de-
velopments with much interest and some
anxiety. WHAT kind of combine it will
be, therefore, is the question everybody
in the trade asks and no one answers.
Whether the movement in the American
Cotton Oil stock has anything to do with
these transactions is also conundrum
in the trade. This stock sold at 26 cents
within a month and sold yesterday at
351s cents.