Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/120

108 of by water, is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty tons.

The bags are in the press about fifteen minutes, the oil running out and the dry kernels remaining behind in a solid cake—the oil cake of commerce. This product is of a rich golden color, quite dry, and of a sweet and oily taste. When used for food it is ground to the consistence of corn meal, and it is known as cotton-seed meal. A comparison of the number of pounds of flesh produced by several kinds of food is as follows: Cotton-seed cake, forty-one pounds; bran, thirty-one pounds; peas, twenty-two pounds; corn, twelve pounds; rye, eleven pounds. The number of pounds of fat produced by the several foods are these: Cotton-seed cake, fifty-seven pounds; bran, fifty-four pounds; peas, fifty pounds; corn, sixty-eight pounds; rye, seventy-two pounds; hay, fifty pounds. It is claimed that cotton-seed cake fed to cows gives a rich and plentiful supply of milk.

The oil, having been pumped into the oil room, is treated with caustic soda and constantly stirred. A deposit falls to the bottom of the kettle and the refined oil is turned off. It averages about eighty-two per cent of the crude oil. The deposit, known as soap stock, sells readily to soap manufacturers, or it is used by the mill itself in the manufacture of soap. Much of it is sent to foreign countries. The oil is occasionally refined over again to remove wholly a slightly bitter flavor of the seed which reduces the culinary value.

It will be noticed that the products of the seed are—(1) oil, both the crude and the refined; (2) oil cake; (3) lint; (4) hulls; (5) soap stock; (6) glycerin. One gallon of crude cotton-seed oil will yield three pounds and a half of glycerin, but thus far only a small amount has been made. The use of the seed for these several purposes has been of great benefit to the Southern States. Their output is constantly increasing, while the supply of petroleum in the oil fields of Pennsylvania and elsewhere appears to be decreasing. The world was greatly excited when petroleum was discovered. But the discovery of cotton-seed oil has been so gradual that the importance of it has not been realized until lately. This brief statement of what is being done to-day with an article that was going to waste a generation ago must lead every student of economy to ask, "Are there not other waste products of the present time that will be used a generation hence, and thus not only increase the comfort of living but also decrease the expense?"