I ■_'() 



Thr (ifotr'niij of Ijtiisinl In EiKjUnid 



5 grnis. of the seed was thorouglily ground in a mortar with silver sand 

 which had been extracted with boiling hydrochloric acid and washed 

 free from acid and soluble salts. The finely ground material was 

 transferred to a Soxhlet extraction thimble; anything remaining in the 

 mortar being washed into the thimble with petroleum ether (b.p. below 

 40° C). The extraction was carried out in a Soxhlet Extraction 

 Apparatus with petroleum ether and was continued for some 20 to '2\ 

 hours. The ethereal extract was then filtered into a weighed flask and 

 the ether distilled off on a water bath and the oil freed from any remaining 

 ether and dried in a steam oven at 98 99° C. Every half hour the flask 

 was cooled in a desiccator and weighed. The series of weighings thus 

 obtained showed first a decrease as ether and moisture were expelled, 

 and then an increase as the oil slowly oxidised. The smallest weight 

 was taken as the true weight of the dry oil. Duplicates were carried 

 out in all cases and invariably were in close agreement; the greater 

 number being well within 0-2') ')„. 



The figures given (Table I) indicate that linseed grown in England 

 is by no means inferior in oil to any of the imported samples. Indeed, 

 the results as a whole compare by no means unfavourably with the 

 figures given by Leather' for 52 samples of Indian linseed grown in all 

 parts of India, in spite of the fact that the climate of India is generally 

 considered to be especially favourable to the growth of oil-bearing crops. 



Summary of Leathers results for Indian Linseed. 



The crops grown at Wye gave consistently higher figures than those 

 at the other centres, from which it would appear that linseed is more 

 suitable as a south country crop, doing best under the warmer more 

 equable weather conditions of our southern shores. If this is so, one 

 would expect similar high figures for the linseed grown at the Seale- 

 Hayne Agricultural (,'ollego (the Devonshire Centre). Here, however, 

 the season was a very wet one, the yield was low (in one case less than 

 a liundred-weight to the acre), and great difTiciilt\- was experienced in 



' Leather, loc. cil. 



