salt fish can easily turn the
fish skins into glue. The by-products of great packing houses and
tanneries are legion. Often such dealers will have at hand such a
supply of usable stuff that they will establish other factories where
their unused materials can be converted into cash. The sale of these
products often increases very materially the profits of a business.
Such a product is cottonseed oil. As millions more seeds mature each
year than can possibly be used for planting why not turn them to
account? Often there are from sixty-five to seventy-five pounds of
seeds to a hundred pounds of cotton. Think how rapidly they would
accumulate if something could not be done with them. During the war
when we were unable to get olive oil from Italy and fats of all kinds
were scarce we were thankful enough to fall back on the cottonseed oil
made in our own country. At the oil mills machines are ready to clean
the cotton seeds of lint, hull them, separate hull from kernel, and
press the oil from the kernel itself. This oil is then bottled,
labelled, and shipped for sale, making quite an independent little
industry, you see. What is left of the crushed kernels is removed from
the hydraulic presses and is remolded into small cakes to be used
for----" he paused, glancing quizzically toward Carl and Mary.

"For what?" the boy asked.

"Guess!"

"I've not the most remote idea," Carl returned.

"Nor I!" echoed Mary.

"For cattle to eat," went on Captain Dillingham, completing his
unfinished sentence.

"Even the hulls," he continued, "are, I believe, utilized in some way;
and as I previously told you the lint which clings to the seeds is
passed through a second sort of gin, gathered into a bundle, and
afterward put through a carding engine which combs it out and prepares
it so it can be made into wadding for coverlids, quilted linings, and
quilted petticoats. All the gins then collect whatever material is left
and this, being absolutely too poor for any other purpose, is sold as
cotton waste to be used for cleaning machinery and polishing brass and
nickel trimmings. Were we individuals half as thrifty as are
manufacturers in salvaging the odds and ends that come our way we might
save ourselves many a penny. Every year we Americans throw away enough
food and wearing apparel to maintain a small army. We are, alas, a very
wasteful people and are constantly becoming more so. Our ancestors used
to lay aside buttons, string, papers, s