Value of Product.—The total value of crude cotton seed products manufactured in 1915 amounted to $180,260,000, compared with $107,528,000 in 1909, $69,311,000 in 1904 and $42,412,000 in 1899. Compared with 1909, all the States show an increase excepting Louisiana. The average value of productsper ton of seed crushed was $17.11 in 1899, $M.72 in 1904, $28.10 in 1909 and $42.89 in 1915. The average value of oil produced in 1914 was 41.9 cents per gallon; of cake and meal $25.30 per ton; of hulls $7.99 per ton; and of linters 2.3 cents per pound. Since the outbreak of the European War the price of linters has increased three fold due to its importance in the manufacture of guncotton and other high explosives. The extraordinary demand for this short-fibre cotton has resulted in a readjustment of the delinter gins so that almost every particle of fibre is stripped from the seed, many mills even running the seed through the delinter Fins a second time. In 1915 the average production of linters per ton of seed was slightly more than 100 pounds, in 1914 74 pounds, 67 pounds in 1913 and 1912, and 57 pounds in 1911. Not many years ago 30 pounds to the ton of seed was considered a good average. In 1914 oil represented 51.9 per cent of the value of crude products; meal and cake, 36 per cent; hulls, 7.2 per cent; linters, 4.9 per cent. The estimated quantity of seed • At the fifth annual convention of the Cotton Seed Crushers' Association, held in Chicago in June 1883, it was stated that there were 101 cotton oil mills in the United States, 85 of which were then in active operation throughout the year. In 1884 this number in creased to 130, and 10 years later there were just twice this number, distributed among the States as follows: Alabama 20, Arkansas Georgia 37, Louisiana 19, Mississippi 24, North Carolina 17 South Carolina 28, Tennessee 18 and Texas 89.
Between 1899 and 1914 the number of mills increased from 357 to 872, or 144.3 per cent, and the quantity of seed crushed from 2,479,386 tons to 4,847,628 tons, or 95.5 per cent. The number of active mills has:increased since d909 produced from the crop of 1915 was 4,992,000 tons,, of which the mills took 4,202,000 tons, or 84 per cent, leaving 790,000 tons, or 16 per cent, for planting, exrt, feeding and other purposes. This is by, the greatest percentage of seed ever taken from any crop, the average in recent years being about 75 per cent.
Present Proceas.—The present process of
extracting the oil from the cotton seed is a rather complicated one in its preparatory stages, but is simplified to the last degree by the em ployment of machinery at each and every step. The seed, on reaching the mill, is first screened to remove sand, dirt, bolls and foreign sub stances, and finally a draft of air is used to complete the cleaning process. The seed is now =0 'for the linters, which machines are an elaboration of the ordinary cotton-gin; and whatever staple remains upon the seed is stripped off in passing through them. From the linters the seed passes to the huller, a high speed cutting-machine, which cuts it up most thoroughly. The hulls, by screens and beaters, are now separated from the meats, which latter are, by screw-conveyers, conducted to bins con tiguous to roller-crushers, and as fast as re quired are passed through the crushers, where the mass is reduced to a uniform consistency, and is known to millmen as °uncooked meal.x' The first step is cooking this meal, which is done in steam-jacketed kettles. When heated to a proper degree the meal is drawn from the kettles, formed into cakes, enveloped in 'camel's hair cloth and placed in boxes of an hydraulic press, when by the application of proper pressure the crude oil is speedily extracted. The solid residue remaining in the press-box is the decorticated cottonseed oil cake of commerce.
In the practical methods by which these mills are supplied and operated all the improve ments of modern industrial enterprise have been laid under tribute. In the distribution of the oil product, tank-cars on the railroads and tank steamers on the high seas are used for trans portation in bulk. The diversity of the indus try requires factories other than the crude-oil mills, as refineries, lard and cottolene plants, soap factories, cotton-ginneries, cotton com pressors and fertilizer-mixing establishments. The supply for all these is derived directly from the crude-oil mills, which in their turn are operated immediately from the raw material, in providing which there has grown up a most important branch of the agricultural system of the South.
New One of the chief factors in the remarkable growth of the cotton oil indus try has been the continuous discovery of new uses for its crude products, oil, cake and, meal, linters and hulls. The uses found for each and products manufactured from each may be classified as follows: