| United States | 500 ℔ |
| Indian | 400 ℔ |
| Egyptian | 700 ℔ |
| Peruvian | 200 ℔ |
| Brazilian | 200 to 300 ℔ |
With baling the work of the producer is concluded.
Cultivation in Egypt.—Climatic conditions in Egypt differ radically from those in the United States, the rainfall being so small as to be quite insufficient for the needs of the plant, very little rain indeed falling in the Nile Delta during the whole growing season of the crop: yet Egypt is in order the third cotton-producing country of the world, elaborate irrigation works supplying the crop with the requisite water. The area devoted to cotton in Egypt is about 1,800,000 acres, and nine-tenths of it is in the Nile Delta. The delta soil is typically a heavy, black, alluvial clay, very fertile, but difficult to work; admixture of sand is beneficial, and the localities where this occurs yield the best cotton. Formerly in Egypt the cotton was treated as a perennial, but this practice has been generally abandoned, and fresh plants are raised from seed each year, as in America; one great advantage is that more than one crop can thus be obtained each year. The following rotation is frequently adopted. It should be noted that in Egypt the year is divided into three seasons—winter, summer and “Nili.” The two first explain themselves; Nili is the season in which the Nile overflows its banks.
| Winter. | Summer. | Nili. | |
| First year | Clover | Cotton | .. |
| Second year | Beans or wheat | .. | Corn or fallow |
For cotton cultivation the land is ploughed, carefully levelled, and then thrown up into ridges about 3 ft. apart. Channels formed at right angles to the cultivation ridges provide for the access of water to the crop. The seeds, previously soaked, are sown, usually in March, on the sides of the ridges, and the land watered. After the seedlings appear, thinning is completed in usually three successive hoeings, the plants being watered after thinning, and subsequently at intervals of from twelve to fifteen days, until about the end of August when picking commences. The total amount of water given is approximately equivalent to a rainfall of about 35 in. The crop is picked, ginned and baled in the usual way, the Macarthy style action roller gins being almost exclusively employed.
Cotton Seed.—The history of no agricultural product contains more of interest and instruction for the student of economics than does that of cotton seed in the United States. The revolution in its treatment is a real romance of industry. Up till 1870 or thereabouts, cotton seed was regarded as a positive nuisance upon the American plantation. It was left to accumulate in vast heaps about ginhouses, to the annoyance of the farmer and the injury of his premises. Cotton seed in those days was the object of so much aversion that the planter 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 ℔ of seed are produced for every 500 ℔ of cotton brought to market. On the basis, therefore, of a cotton crop of 10,000,000 bales of 500 ℔ 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 the farmer has to buy, cotton seed possesses, therefore, a distinct value.
The products of cotton seed have become important elements in the national industry of the United States. The main product is the refined oil, which is used for a great number of purposes, such as a substitute for olive oil, mixed with beef products for preparation of compound lard, which is estimated to consume one-third of cotton seed oil produced in the States. The poorer grades are employed in the manufacture of soap, candles and phonograph records. Miners’ lamp oil consists of the bleached oil mixed with kerosene. Cotton seed cake or meal (the residue after the oil is extracted) is one of the most valuable of feeding stuffs, as the following simple comparison between it and oats and corn will show:—
| Average Analyses. | Proteins or Flesh Formers. | Carbohydrates or Fuel and Fat Suppliers. | Fats. | Ash or Bone Makers. |
| Cotton seed meal | 43.26 | 22.31 | 13.45 | 7.02 |
| Corn | 10.5 | 70.0 | 5.5 | 1.02 |
| Oats | 17.0 | 65.0 | 8.0 | 1.2 |