Definition of "cotton-seed" []

• The seed of the cotton-plant. (noun)
• A machine which compresses the fiber upon the seed, so that it can be sown by an ordinary machine. (noun)
• Cotton-seeds as picked are densely-covered with the lint which is removed by ginning (see cotton-gin). The seed after ginning is either quite smooth, or, as is practically all commercial seed, still covered with down (see black-seed *cotton, green-seed *cotton, and linter). The seed proper of cotton is composed of the hull (the outer shell) consisting of the seed-coats and the meat, or kernel, consisting of a coiled embryo without albumen, sprinkled with resinous glands, and containing in its cells, with other substances, oil to the extent of 20 per cent, or more of the seed. The weight of the seed is slightly over twice that of the adherent lint; the hull and the meat form about equal parts. Cotton-seed was not utilized, except for planting, until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when its value for oil and cake began to be recognized in England. It had no commercial value in the United States prior to 1834, and, though it had come into extensive use for fertilization and into limited use for feeding purposes, large amounts were still thrown away in the richer cotton States down to the time of the civil war. With the introduction of the oil-mill, chiefly after 1807, the cotton-seed industry vastly expanded, until in 1900 the total value of manufactured cotton-seed products exceeded $42,000,000, a sum much increased in later years. (noun)
• A mixture of ground hulls and waste kernels, chiefly of immature or frosted seed. It is used as food for cattle. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Ms. Reid vividly describes how people tried to get by on virtually inedible food substitutes: cotton-seed cakes that were normally used as fuel in ship furnaces; sheep guts, together with calf skins from a tannery, were turned into "meat jelly"; fermented birch sawdust was turned into "yeast extract," which, dissolved in hot water, was considered "yeast soup.""
• "China-based agricultural biotechnology company and seed developer Origin Agritech jumped 1.20, or 15%, to 9.29, after selling its stake in a cotton-seed development group for $8.8 million."
• "Men drove spades into the butterine which was 40 percent oleo oil, some cotton-seed oil, and questionably the rest was milk."