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Show : New Uses for Cotton Are Hope : Offered SurplusSmothered' South Once-Scorned 1 Cottonseed Comes : Into Its Own k This is the third of six stories on Chemurgy, science's contribution to the task, of f restoring the farmer to prosperity- v By 1'AI L FKIC.CiKXS ! NK.V Service Staff Writer Cotton is Chemurgy's greatest 2 challenge in the south. - The economic welfare of the i south is centered around the cotton cot-ton industry and the Industry is - facing the gravest crisis in its history. There is a surplus of more than ; 11,500,000 bales of American cot-; cot-; ton in the current crop. Foreurn M cotton production is rising steadily, stead-ily, increasing some 80 per cent since 1928 There is a marked decrease de-crease in the export of domestic cotton to foreign spinners at the ; same time. So the American situation calls ' ' for drastic action. c" Three solutions, one of wrrjh is J chemurgy's, may be considered. The United States might launch a program to increase Its cotton ex-' ex-' ports, a plan unlikely to succeed m the face of present world conditions. condi-tions. It might curtail production produc-tion to the 7.000,000 bales con-u con-u suraed annually. Or finally, the j industry may turn to wholesale ' development of new uses for cotton. cot-ton. , Chemurgy sees the real hope in this last direction. Killing On Cotton n Consider the possibilities as ' I You would ride on cotton v roads live in a cotton house, bathe in a cotton tub, dress in fireproof cotton clothes and listen lis-ten to "cotton" music under intensive in-tensive ciiemurgic development. You would use cotton in varnish, var-nish, lacquers, explosives, cellophane, cello-phane, ra j or, ui r planes, tint o-mobilcs, o-mobilcs, as a substitute for ceramic tile, as floor coverings and even i n toys for c h i Id rcn . As one chemurgist has put it, you might conceivably use cot-ion cot-ion in some 10,000 forms. Cotton roads, the. chemurgists '. arc confident, are going to do much to decrease Dixie's surplus f the white staple. They base their predictions on a series of experiments which show bituminous-surface roads which have a cotton binder a coarse cotton sheet between layers of tar products prod-ucts are easy to build and eco-nominal eco-nominal to maintain. "The properly buttt cotton road is virtually waterproof, with no water seeping into the base and permitting freezing weather to cause damage which appears in I the 'frost boils' and ravel ings that j make annual repairs a necessity," Clinton T. Revere, New York engineer, en-gineer, recently told the annual i convention of the. National Farm Chemiirgic Council. ; Revere estimated the maximum : cost of buvlding cotton roads at .$5000 a mile with the "annual maintenance charge reduced practically prac-tically to nil." He pointed to 2,000,000 miles of farm-to-market roads alone as possible outlets for the phase of cotton utilization. And "Rubber" Too . Moyt of the products made from cotton so far have come from the cotton 1nters, the little "fuzz" . that sticks to the seed when the j fiber is removed. They make an impressive list, including fountain foun-tain pen barrels, paper, wiring insulation, phonograph records, plastic parts for automobiles, surgical sur-gical dressing, low-grade yarns, but Chemurgy considers this only a part of the cotton crop. The other, and perhaps more valuable, is the cottonseed. Not so many years ago cotton farmers considered cottonseed as practically worthless. Chemurgists have now turned it into -an important im-portant industrial product. From the seed, its hulls, and oil come shortening, margarine and salad dressing, medical preparations, prepara-tions, cosmetics, soap and washing powder, candles, composition roofing, roof-ing, linoleum, oilcloth, insulating mnteral. livestock feed, fertilizer and "cotton rubber." Cotton rubber is a molding ina-lerifil ina-lerifil which is similar to hard rubber. It may be used for light sockets, dress ornaments, toys, bath tubs, and lavatories. So it is typically chemurgic: It illustrates just how far the cotton patch may be utilized in industry. I The south's big economic prob-I prob-I 1cm results from its surplus of cotton fiber but at times there is an actual shortage of the cottonseeds cotton-seeds from which bathtubs may be made, for example. The United States imports approximately 200,-000,000 200,-000,000 opunds of cottonseed oi'I at the present time and large quantities of, vegetable oils for which cottonseed oil might be substituted. sub-stituted. Significant Seeds "It is conceivable then," says D. T. Killough, agronomist at Texas Tex-as Agricultural Experiment station, sta-tion, "that a new type of cotton plant may be developed through breeding in which the seed is the chief products rather than the lint, "Cotton is grown primarily for ':ls fiber and it is this which has created the burdensome surplus. One solution, therefore, would be to produce more seed and less fiber, which would require a plant that stores the larger part of its energy in its seed." Chemurgy is already at work on that As a matter of fact, it has already produced types of short lintcd seeds, Jin t less seed, and lint-shedding seed. ' Thus chemurgy accepts the challenge of cotton. And as Wheeler McMillen of the National Farm Chemurgic Council sees it, it is prepared to give no quarter. |