6. Other Cotton Products
Before concluding this part of our survey which deals with the manufacture of cotton into finished goods, we must at least enumerate some of the by-products and minor fruits of the industry.
Seed Oil
Linters
To begin with, at the time that the cotton is ginned the seeds are sold to the manufacturers of cotton oil. Without going into detail as to the process, we have here an annual product for this country worth $384,000,000. Seed mills regin the seed before they crush it and remove the short fibres which have hitherto adhered to the seed. This regained cotton is known as linters and amounts annually to about 800,000 bales.
Felt and Surgical Dressings
Being of very short staple this reginned cotton is adapted for the manufacture of felts and surgical dressings, both of which are important by-products.
Lace
The manufacture of small-wares and lace curtains is another minor branch of cotton manufacture. Here, however, domestic production is comparatively small, and the bulk of the lace used is imported. Nevertheless probably over 75,000,000 yards[3] of the lace are made annually in this country.
Gun Cotton
Collodion
Gun-cotton, a highly explosive substance, is obtained by soaking cotton (usually linters) in nitric and sulphuric acids and then leaving it to dry. And again, gun-cotton dissolved in ether and alcohol yields the much used surgical adhesive known as collodion.
The stems and leaves of the cotton plant are used for fodder, the seed hulls for fertilizer, and there is in fact no part of the plant from which man has not learned to derive some useful product.