Nearly all parts of the cotton plant find a use. After the cotton is picked, the stalks are burnt upon the fields or “plowed under” to serve as a fertilizer for the soil, which would otherwise become impoverished very rapidly. The bark of the root is collected and employed medicinally, its medicinal properties being highly lauded by the negroes of the South. The seeds yield the cottonseed oil, which is not unlike olive oil. This oil, however, varies in purity, the purest being used as an adulterant of olive oil or as a substitute for this oil. The less pure grades are used for burning, but more in the preparation of woollen cloth and morocco leather, also as a lubricant for machinery. It is also used as a substitute for almond oil and olive oil in many pharmaceutical preparations and in the manufacture of soap. The seeds from which the oil has been expressed constitute the cottonseed cake, used as a nutritious cattle fodder. In the South a tea made from the seeds is considered a useful remedy in the treatment of malaria and dysentery. A tea made from the leaves is much used medicinally in Jamaica and other islands of the West Indies. It is, however, the fiber, or cotton, which is the important part of the plant. It would be a tedious and difficult task to describe, or even enumerate, all of the uses to which it is put. It is used as wadding in clothing and quilts. It is used by the bacteriologist in the filtration of air; air passed through a layer of cotton is germ free. It is also used in the filtration of liquids. Purified and variously prepared, cotton is almost indispensable in surgery. It forms an excellent protective covering for wounds, ulcers, burns and scalds. It absorbs secretions and arrests hemorrhages. It is used in the preparation of gun cotton (pyroxylin) nitro-cellulose, collodion and flexible collodion. Gun cotton is prepared by treating cotton with strong nitric acid and is used in gunnery, blasting and in photography. Collodion (collodium) and flexible collodion are used in surgery, in the treatment of ulcers, skin diseases, to arrest hemorrhages, applied to inflamed areas, etc.