The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-21
UTILIZING COTTON SEED. This suggestive paragraph is frol The New York Commercial:

I ne NeW 1OTh SOIlIucICtdl'
 Cottonseed used to be thrown away, most of it, as worthless. A thrifty peo- pie has turned that waste into A2,O)O,No a year. And the question that spontane- ously leaps to our lips is; what can they not do?
 Yes, the Southern people have found an unfailng source of wealth in what was once a nuisance to be gotten rid of; and our people have just come to b, proud of the achievement, but the ques- 'tion which closes the quotation brings to our mind one reply not at all compliment tary to us as a people. What We can
 not do, if we judge by results. is to grow
 enough provisions and feed-stuffs to sup
 ply one-fourth the demands of our own
 population. If they can do 1t. they do not, which amounts to the same thing, practically, but it is not at all compli- mentary to us as a people.
 But 1t is really wonderful to think of the change that has taken place in the uses of cottonseed. Those of us who
 have passed middle age. and who had opportunities to see what was going on among the farmers. well remember the great piles of cottonseed that were piled around the gin-houses, where they were left to rot and pollute the air with their disagreeable and dangerous odor. Some times part of the decayed mass was used as a fertilizer, and sometimes the seed were scattered on the wheat lands, but in a general way. they were looked on as an unmitigated nuisance. and the problem with the large farmers was to get rid of them. That the Southern peo- pie have, within more than a generation. learned to utilize this once useless prod uce to the amount indicated by the above figures is a compliment and a credit to them, and Is an incontrovertible evidence that they might, in other ways add to the aggregate and individual wealth of the population by changing some of the habits which still cling to them The South and the people of the South have at band the means of becoming the rich est section of the Union, and it is their own fault if they fail.
 It is hardly necessary for any Ala bama newspaper to speak of the mineral resources of the State. The two great necessities of the civilized world, coal and iron. are indigenous, and they have been so familiarized and popularized through out the earth that speaking of them is superfuous And it is only just to our people to~say that commendable enter prise and energy has been and is being displayed in converting our iron ores into merchantable iron and steel. The busi- ness of manufacturing our own cotton is also taking creditable stand, though what is now done is only small part of what ought to be done. Every town of any considerable size, and especially in the cotton growing sections of the State, should have one or more factories where the raw material can be converted into goods which the people need and must have. That, also. is making fair prog ress.
 But the manufacture of iron and cotton goods is not all that should he done In Alabama. It is not creditable to us that a large per cent. of the articles made of wood which are sold in Alabama should come from some other sections of the Union. Our swamps and forests abound in almost every variety of hard and soft woods, and those woods could be manu- factured at home as we'll as is done else- where and thus stop one of the drains which carry so many millions of dollars out of the State. Neither Is 1t creditabie to us that the larger portion of the can ned vegetables and fruits which are used in Alabama are shipped to us from other States. There is no questioning the fact that the soil of Alabama can grow all the fruits and vegetables that our people can consume, and it is equally certain that they should be canned here. There is no danger of Aoverstocking the world, to say nothing of the immense amount of these articles that we use at home.
 We do not know how much of the S42,- Ooo,0OO of which The Commercial speaks, as d result of the south's manipulation