|
Fig. 75.—Cotton stem fuel being conveyed from the canals to city market stalls.
The manufacture of cotton seed oil and cotton seed cake is one of the common family industries in China, and in one of these homes we saw rice hulls and rice straw being used as fuel. In the large low, one-story, tile-roofed building serving as store, warehouse, factory and dwelling, a family of four generations were at work, the grandfather supervising in the mill and the grandmother leading in the home and store where the cotton seed oil was being retailed for 22 cents per pound and the cotton seed cake at 33 cents, gold, per hundredweight. Back of the store and living rooms, in the mill compartment, three blindfolded water buffalo, each working a granite mill, were crushing and grinding the cotton seed. Three other buffalo, for relay service, were lying at rest or eating, awaiting their turn at the ten-hour working day. Two of the mills were horizontal granite burrs more than four
