ter burned it or threw it
into running streams, as was most convenient. If the seed were allowed
to lie about, it rotted, and hogs and other animals, eating it, often
died. It was very difficult to burn, and when dumped into rivers and
creeks was carried out by flood water to fill the edges of the flats
with a decaying and offensive mass of vegetable matter. Although used in
the early days to a limited extent as a food for milch cows and other
stock, and to a larger extent as a manure, no systematic efforts were
made anywhere in the South to manufacture the seed until the later
'fifties, when the first cotton seed mills were established. It is said
that there were only seven cotton oil mills in the South in 1860. The
cotton-growing industry was interrupted by the Civil War, and the
seed-milling business did not begin again until 1868. After that time
the number of mills rapidly increased. There were 25 in the South in
1870, 50 in 1880, 120 in 1890, and about 500 in 1901, about one-third
being in Texas.

Experience shows that 1000 lb. of seed are produced for every 500 lb
of cotton brought to market. On the basis, therefore, of a cotton crop
of 10,000,000 bales of 500 lb. each, there are produced 5,000,000 tons
of cotton seed. If about 3,000,000 tons only are pressed, there remain
to be utilized on the farm 2,000,000 tons of cotton seed, which, if
manufactured, would produce a total of $100,000,000 from cotton seed. In
contrast with the farmers of the 'sixties, the southern planter of the
20th century appreciates the value of his cotton seed, and farmers, too
remote from the mills to get it pressed, now feed to their stock all the
cotton seed they conveniently can, and use the residue either in compost
or directly as manure. The average of a large number of analyses of
Upland cotton seed gives the following figures for its fertilizing
constituents:--Nitrogen, 3.07%; phosphoric acid, 1.02%; potash, 1.17%;
besides small amounts of lime, magnesia and other valuable but less
important ingredients. Sea Island cotton seed is rather more valuable
than Upland: the corresponding figures for the three principal
constituents being nitrogen 3.51, phosphoric acid 1.69, potash 1.59%.
Using average prices paid for nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash when
bought in large quantities and in good forms, these ingredients, in a
ton of cotton seed, amount to $9.00 worth of fertilizing material.
Compared with the commercial fertilizer which