The commercial eottonseed-oils are classified as crude, summer yellow, summer white, winter yellow, and winter white. The winter oils are made by cooling the summer oils to the freezing point, when the palmitin crystallizes and the oil is pressed out of the remaining solidified ma terial. Cottonseed-oil consists chiefly of palma tin and olein, the winter oils being almost entirely olein. It stands midway between the drying and non-drying oils, its drying properties being in ferior to those of linseed oil. (See OILS.) It soli difies at from 32° to 38° F., is almost odorless, and has a slight nutty taste. Its uses are constantly increasing. It is employed extensively in cooking and is also used as an adulterant of lard, olive oil, and other staples. By many it is preferred as a substitute for lard or butter. in cooking. It. is used in pharmaey, in making soap and paint. as a lubricator and an illuminant. Consult Brooks, Cotton (New York. IS9S).
Feeding and Fertilizing Value.—Brief men tion has already been matte of the use of cotton seed products for feeding cattle and for fertilizer. Whole cottonseed has been shown by a large number of analyses to range in composition as follows: bars, and then the meats and hulls are separated, the latter being sold either loose or in 100-pound hales. The meats are now ready to he passed through heavy ealender rolls to crush theoil-cells. There are two processes of making cottonseed This material was used in the past to consider able extent as a feeding stuff for cattle and sheep, and was fed either raw. cooked or roasted, but, with the advent of oil-mills, its use for this purpose is much less in the vicinity of these, because the seed is disposed of to better advantage to the millers or can be exdianged for cottonseed meal. There are also the further reasons that the lint on the seed and the dust it collects are likely to be injurious, while at the same time it is not easy to mix the seed itself thoroughly with other coarse feeds. It is a very rich feeding stuff, and animals must be ac•ustomol to it gradually. The whole seed is sometimes used for fertilizer, and then it is partially rolled.
Cutionso'd-mcal is the ground residue left in the manufacture of oil from the seed. It is some times called cottonseed cake and belongs to the class of feeding stuffs known as oil cakes. Cotton seed cake is of two kinds—mulecorticated, or that front the whole seed, and decorticated, or made from the kernels after the hulls have been re moved. Undecorticated cake was formerly largely used, but most of the mills now remove the hulls before expressing the oil. Cottonseed-meal is bright-yellow in color. with a sweet, nutty flavor. It deteriorates and becomes discolored with age. The following summary of over 400 analyses shows its range in eomposition, which is due to differences in the composition of the seed and the completeness with which the hulls are sepa rated and the oil expressed: half of the weight of the ginned seed. They con tain about 11 per cent. of water, 4 of protein, 46 of fibre, 33 of nitrogen-free extract, and 2 per cent. of fat. Their digestibility is low, less than 40 per cent. of the total dry matter being assimi lated. They are had and dry, usually covered with a fuzzy lint, and very bulky. For this reason they are put up in bales weighing about Dimly pounds. They are used principally as a cheap substitute for hay, and for the purpose of giving bulk to the ration. Large numbers of
cattle are fattened in the Southern States of the United States on cottonseed-meal and hulls ex clusively, in proportions varying from two to six pounds of hulls to one pound of meal. The prac tice is claimed to be economical and profitable, and the diet apparently does not injure the health of the animals or impair the quality of the product.
Cottonseed-meal is rich in fertilizing materials, especially nitrogen, aS shown by the following average of over 200 analyses: Water, 7.S: ash, 7; nitrogen, 6.8; phosphoric acid, 2.9; and potash, IS per cent. It is chiefly used as a source of nitrogen, and finds quite extensive use for that purpose through the Southern Portion of the United States. It has given excellent results with This material is one of the richest feeding stuffs in use, considerably exceeding in protein and fat such materials as linseed-meal, but, in spite of this, it. is quite well digested when fed in modera tion. On an average, SS.S per cent. of the protein, 57 per cent. of the fibre, 77.6 per cent. of the nitrogen-free extract. and 88.6 per cent. of the fat has been found to be digested by ruminants. It is fed extensively in the, United States to cows, cattle, sheep, and nearly all kinds of farm stock, with the exception of pigs. The• latter do not seem, for some reason. to be able to eat the meal, although they eat the whole seed without injurious effects. Young animals, like calves, have also often been injured by cottonseed-meal, and its use with them is attended with danger. All experience goes to show that the fresh meal can be fed to other kinds of animals without danger and in large quantities after they become accustomed to it. Six. eight, and even ten pounds of cottonseed-meal per head is often fed to steers, with good results, using no other kind of grain. It is undoubtedly best to mix some material like cornmeal with it. For cows about two pounds a day seems to be a safe limit for continued feed ing, although three and often fcur pounds are often fed. It tends to give a firmer, harder butter, which will stand shipment better. Larger quantities can be fed with safety in winter than in summer. It is one of the cheapest of the highly nitrogenous feeding stuffs, and is there fore one of the most economical for balancing rations.
Cottonseed-hulls, which are removed at the mills by means of crushers, screens, and shakers, also posse some feeding value, and are much used with the meal. They constitute nearly one sugar-cane, cotton, and corn, and has been suc cessfully substituted for barnyard manure in the culture of tobacco. But its use as a fertilizer is of course wasteful, as the food constituents are not utilized in that case. A more rational prac tice in many cases is to feed the meal and apply the resulting manure to the soil, since from SO to 00 per cent. of the fertilizing materials would be recovered in the manure, and additional benefit would be secured in the production of meat, milk, etc. Cottonseed-hulls are to some extent burned as fuel, and the resulting cotton-hull ashes are rich in potash and make an excellent fertilizer for tobacco. (See AsuEs.) Consult Roper, "Cotton seed Products," in Twelfth United States Census, vol. ix., part iii. (Washington, 1902).