The hulling machine invented by William R. Fee attracted ccirtsiderable attention, as it introduced the new principle of cutting the hulls in two instead of crushing them. All the machinery hitherto employed in decorticating the seed subjected them to a grinding action which so packed the hulls, fibres and kernel together that it was impossible to separate them in the process of screening without waste. When grooved cylinders were used, the grooves sometimes became so choked up as to necessi tate separating the parts for cleaning, and it was found impossible to hull seed that were the least damp. This defective mode of hulling rendered the subsequent screening imperfect and occasioned a nnnous loss of oil, much of which was absorbed by the porous hulls and fibres of cotton. There was also an additional waste in the fragments of kernel screened out with the hulls. The Fee huller corrected all these faults. A single huller was capable of hulling three tons of seed per hour, which was claimed to be 24 times the capacity of any other huller. It was also claimed that by cut ting instead of crushing, or grinding the seed, 30 per cent more oil was made from a given quantity of seed, and that it would also hull seed completely drenched with water. huller, and also an hydraulic press, also in vented by Mr.' Fee, were in use at the mills in New Orleans, Memphis; Saint Louis, and at one or two places in Texas, and at Dayton and Cin cinnati, Ohio, in 1860. Several of them had been tested and satisfactorily used as early as 2856. , No little credit is due to Paul Adige New Orleans, who about this period visited the important oil mills in Europe, including those at Marseilles, France, where he obtained much valuable and practical knowledge of extracting and refining cottonseed oil.
best quality of crude oil found a market among oil refiners, who by a very simple process removed •all mechanical impurities, and destroyed the coloring matter so as to produce an oil of a rich olive color, sweet and agreeable to the taste. It was found to be an admirable substitute for olive oil, and when flavored by an addition of olive could not be distinguished from the genuine article. This gradually found its way to the tables of private families and first-class hotels. The chief consumers, however, of the oil made from 1855 to 1870 were the soap manufacturers. From the crude oil they produced almost every grade of soap, from the cheapest family to.the purest white castile, and the finest and most highly perfumed toilet soaps. The surreptitious use and mixture of the cotton oil with other oils brought it into disrepute and only small quantities under its true name found a ready market, except to the soap manufacturers.
Growth of the Industry.— The census re turns of 1860 show seven mills in operation, three in Louisiana and one in each of the States of Missouri, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee. They employed 183 persons who received $76,356 in wages, had 351,000 capital invested, paid out $358,000 for raw material and turned out products valued at $741,000. About 50,000 tons of seed were used,
which yielded at the rate of 30 gallons per ton, and about 1,500,000 gallons of crude oil. Of the seven mills built prior to 1860 only three survived the Civil War, the one at New Or leans, the one at Saint Louis and the other at Providence, R. I. But no sooner was the war ended and the cotton planters began producing sufficient seed than the attention of enterprising capitalists was turned to cotton oil making as a profitable investment, and the industry again revived. So far as the mechanical process was concerned, about the only difficulty encountered at this time was the lint, or short fibres adhering to the seed as it came from the plantation gin house. This trouble was soon obviated by the delinting machines invented by Wm. F. Pratt, of Bridgewater, Mass., and Geo. W. Grader, of Memphis, already referred to. These ma chines were entirely distinct from the ordinary gin, taking the seed after the plantation ginning, stripping them of the short downy fibre, and thus preparing them for a more perfect sep aration of the hulls from the kernel. The delinting gin was constructed somewhat on the principle of the common saw gin, and consisted of a series of circular saws and a fluted roll, the roll serving as it revolved to turn the seed over and over, thus causing all parts of them to be acted upon by very fine teeth saws.
In the meantime various improvements were made in the detail workings of the ma chinery used for making cotton oil, which re sulted in greatly increasing its capacity and cheapening the cost of making the oil. The capacity of the first huller in use was about one-third of a ton per hour; that of the of the 1855-60 period about three tonsper hour, and of the improved hullers of 1870-94 a still greater capacity. The presses used in 1855-60 had a capacity of about three tons per 24 hours, the more modern press 15' tons or more in the same time.
It having been clearly demonstrated that there was a demand for cotton seed products, and that the industry was a profitable one, mills began to increase. So that from three mills in 1865 with an invested capital of $225,000, the number in 1870, just five years after the Civil War, increased to 26 with a capital of $1,225,350; the number of hands employed was 664 and the wages paid was $292,032; the value of raw material $1,333,631 and the value of products $2,205,610. The quantity of oil pro duced was 2,490,883 gallons, valued 'at $1,547,218.
But as important as had been the improve ments made in the cotton oil machinery at this time, of still greater importance were the- dis coveries of the value of the oil as a food product in various forms. In the beginning, or about the time the Follet and Smith mill was built in Petersburg, Va. (1829), it was first used, in an experimental way, as a paint oil, as an illuminant and lubricant, and then as food for stock. But now it was to find its way into the markets as a food product of great value.