The first use made of cotton oil as a food product was about the year 1855, when it was mixed with lard to temper it for consumption in cold climates. But this was done surrep titiously, just as afterward was done when 'it was used for mixing with other food. About the same time it was tested as a salad oil and was found to equal in purity the best olive oil. These experiments and tests were so satisfac tory that the demand for it to mix with lard and olive oil steadily increased.
Sometime between 1865 and 1870 a French man, Hypolite Mage, at the request of the French government, one authority says of Napoleon III himself, was induced to make the experiments that led to the discovery of a substitute for butter that was cheap enough to reach the poorer classes, and would also keep better than butter, and thus be adapted for the use of the navy. In 1873 he took out the first patent in the United States for artificial butter, and this was followed by nearly 50 other patents relating to the manufacture of oleomargarine, or some similar product of artificial butter. One of these patents was a combination of •swine fat, cotton seed oil, slippery elm bark and beef stearin,* and this led to a large con sumption of cotton oil for making artificial butter.
The surreptitious mixture of the oil with lard and its use in the manufacture of artificial butter brought down upon the industry the combined opposition of the lard manufacturers and dairymen of the whole country, who sought by legislation to tax it out of existence. One result of the attempt to bring cotton oil into popular disrepute, and destroy its commercial value was to subject it to careful and most searching analyses by the most eminent chem ists in the world. Their verdict was uniformly in favor of the oil; not only that it was not harmful, but on the contrary a food product of the greatest value, being pure, nutritious and healthful. Its intrinsic merits became so well established that at one of the meetings of the Baltimore Grocers' Exchange (1887) the •Com mittee on Cotton Seed Oils reported its su periority in every respect to hog's lard for cooking purposes — it was cleaner, did not be come rancid in any season and was more health ful and nutritious, and entirely free from any odor or unpleasant taste, besides going one-half further in cooking and costing less in the pro portion of 7 to 12.
About the year 1871 the American oil began to find its way into the Mediterranean ports for mature with olive oil. Soon afterward the French and other European countries began using it for packing sardines, and it came into use for the same purpose on the coast of Maine.
A story is told of a Marseilles oil merchant .who ordered a shipment of cotton oil from a New Orleans mill to mix with olive oil, the olive crop being short that season. He mixed the two oils in proportions of about one-half each, labeled it *pure olive oil* and exported it to South America where he had a good trade. The adulteration was not detected, so the next season he ordered a much larger consignment of cotton oil from New Orleans, and this time mixed the oils in proportions of about three fourths cotton and one-fourth olive, again ex porting it to his South American customers as *pure olive.° No complaint being made, another order for a larger consignment followed. This time only a very small quantity of olive was mixed with the cotton oil, and as before was labeled *pure olive° and exported. Still no complaint was heard; on the contrary, his South American trade grew so rapidly, and he prospered so, that he actually proposed a co partnership with the New Orleans mill, he to furnish the °pure olive* labels and packages from Marseilles, and the New Orleans mill to do the exporting.
No wonder, with the varied uses now found for cotton oil, the growing demand for it at home and abroad, the well-known fact that the mills were making handsome profits, that the industry should have grown so rapidly since 1870. In 1880 the number of mills had in creased to 45, and the capital invested to more than three times what it was in 1870. The fol lowing table from the census of 1880 will show to what proportions the industry had grown to that date: in all of the States except Louisiana and Mis sissippi, where the industry has been greatly affected on account of the destruction of the cotton crops by boll weevils. There has also been a slight decrease in the number of mills operated in Arkansas and South Carolina. Texas shows an increase of 37 mills as com pared with 1909; Oklahoma 21; Alabama 15; Georgia 10. All of the States, with the excep tion of Mississippi, show an increase in the quantity of seed crushed.