Commercial Extension.— As rude and im perfect as was the beginning in the manufac ture of cotton oil, Follet and Smith succeeded in demonstrating that oil for commercial pur poses could be extracted from the cotton seed, so long neglected and considered more or less of a nuisance. They sold their patent rights for most of the Southern States to A. Plum mer & Co. which resulted in the construction, about the year 1833, of several more mills, viz., one near Raleigh, N. C; one at Natchez, Miss.; one at Florence, Ga., and another at Mobile, Ala. The most pretentious and extensive of these mills was the one at Natchez, capable of turning out 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of oil per day. A New Orleans trade journal in 1836 noted the arrival in that city thy the steamer Lamptighter, from Arkansas," of 20 barrels of cotton-seed oil and 20 tons of cotton-oil cake, no doubt the product of the Natchez milt As to how long the mills of this period continued in operation is unknown, but there is every reason for be lieving they had but a brief existence.
But there were a few men in the South fully alive to the great importance of utilizing this wasted wealth, prominent among whom were Dr. Edward J. Coxe and William Wilber of New Orleans. Dr. Coxe undertook to demon strate that the planters were throwing away the seed of three-million-bale crop, that might be made to yield them millions of dollars an nually; that 100 pounds of seed would produce two gallons of oil, 48 pounds of oil cake and pounds of soap stock, and that if only one half the seed was used the value of seed prod ucts would amount to $38,820,000. He also stated that as regards the oil, for dietetic or medicinal purposes, few could detect the least difference between it and the far-famed olive oil of Italy_, and eaten with salad or rice it had the same flavor and taste of the best produc tions of Plaignol, Avigdor or Sue.
The oils experimented with at this time were chiefly made by Mr. Wilber of New Or leans. He exhibited a specimen of his oil at the annual exhibition of the American Institute, held at New York in October 1853, for which he was awarded a silver medal. In 1854 Messrs. Wilber & Co. constructed a mill in New Orleans and •began making oil with a huller patented by Mr. Wilber the year following. From time to time Mr. Wilber improved upon his original machine and in a few years had so perfected it that the seed were pressed into oil without any handling except for the shape of cakes. This machine was so constructed that the seed was taken from the bin, introduced into the crushing apparatus, and thence the crushed material passed through the pressing machines to take off what was called
machinery the oil cake passed under a knife and was cut into shapes convenient for handling. And so by this new process, it may be said, that the rough seed was introduced at one end of the machinery and came out of the' other in the shape of oil and cake.
In 1855, through the enterprise of Messrs. Kendall and Klapp, the Union Oil Company was organized and a large mill was built at Providence, R. I. The same year Messrs. Mar.: tin and Aldige put up a mill at New Orleans, and a few months following another was built in the same city by A. A. Maginnis. About the same time two mills were erected at Memphis, one at Saint Louis, and a little later another at Brooklyn, M N. Y. The seed fbr the New Or leans, Memphis and Saint Louis mills was obtained by water transportation from the plan tations along the banks of the Mississippi, the steamboat lines carrying the seed at very low rates on return trips when other freight was scarce; the Providence and Brooklyn mills ob tained their seed from New Orleans and other Southern ports through sailing vessels. The seed •was purchased at ton rates, the price vary ing from $8 to $10, and was delivered in sacks furnished by the mills and containing from 80 to 100 pounds each.
When cotton oil mitts were first built in the South the planters, who had previously allowed their seed to rot 'about the gin houses, were suddenly seized with the idea that their seed was a very valuable article of trade, and that the demand would far• exceed the supply. Many, therefore, begun to house and take care of the seed, and as plentiful as was the supply, the mills were obliged to pay $10 a ton for all they consumed. By and by, when the planters had figured out the quantity of seed produced in each bale, and the magnitude of the cotton crop, they put down the price, and in 1860 more seed was offered at $5 a ton than the mills could possibly consume during the year.
Now 1835' to 16/0 a dozen patents were granted for hulling ma. chines, four for processes for extracting oil from the seed, five for cleansing the seed, and two for deflating the fibre. • Of these only four proved to useful inventions, namely: the huller patented by William R. Fee, of Cincin nati, August 1857.; another by, F. A, Wells of Memphis, Tenn., October 1869; and two delint ing gins, one by W. F. Pratt, of Bridgewater, Mass., June 1869, and the other by G. W. Grader, of Memphis, August 1869.