no 



AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



lu England both the demand and the supply of oil-seeds have increased, 

 but the supply has by no means sufficed to meet the wants of oil-crushers. 

 France, Germany, and Italy are enlarging their manufacture of oil, and bid- 

 ding against England to secure it. British imports of oil-seeds (principally 

 linseed and rape) have averaged 11,000,000 bushels per annum for three 

 years past. In 1847 the import was but 3,890,280 bushels. 



A great variety of seeds are used, most of them to a very limited extent, 

 for oil-making. Cotton-seed, within ten years, has gTOwn into much import- 

 ance for oil-crushing, the amount used having increased ten per cent, in a few 

 years. A sort of gourd growing in western Africa yields a valuable oil from 

 its seeds, called eguse oil, of a rich golden color and pleasant taste. It burns 

 with a clear flame, is an excellent lubricator, and a good salad oil. These 

 seeds are white, ovate, compressed, about an inch long, having a nutty flavor 

 resembling a hazel nut or young almond. The natives dry, parch, bruise in a 

 mqrtar, grind into a paste, and manipulate them by repeated heating and 

 squeezing, until the oil is exhausted, which they sell at fifty cents to one dol- 

 lar, according to produce and season. The trade in African ground-nuts is 

 assuming a magnitude of which few are aware. Gambia alone exports 12,000 

 tons, worth S675,000. Sunflower-seed is produced in Russia to a certain ex- 

 tent. It yields at a fair average fifty bushels of seed per acre, capable of pro- 

 ducing as many gallons of oil, and an oil-cake said to be worth more than that 

 from liaseed. Seeds of mustard, colza, hemp, and gingelly, and poppy are 

 brought from the East Indies to some extent for oil. Among other seeds pro- 

 ducing oil may be named niger-seed, castor, and camelina ; among fruits, the 

 olive, walnut, palm, cocoa, wohwa, etc., the latter salad oils or vegetable 

 butters. 



CONTINENTAL SUPPLIES. 



Russia stands at the head of flax-growing countries. Austria, France, Ire- 

 land, Prussia, Belgium, and Holland follow in order. It is estimated that in 

 Russia one and a quarter million of acres are devoted to flax-growing. Fifteen 

 years ago the exports of dressed flax amounted to 84,745 tons ; in 1860 it was 

 but 72,901 tons. The diminution of exports is due to the increase of manufac- 

 turing at home ; and the recent cotton famine has increased this home demand 

 for textile fibres, and rendered Russia a precarious dependence for British flax 

 mills. 



The extensive shoi'e-liues of Russia, with a moist atmosphere and rich, 

 loamy soil, and the abundance of cheap labor, give advantages to Russia which 

 scarcely any other nation eujoys for the production of flax. Yet it must not 

 be supposed that Russian material is the best ; at least two causes unite to 

 render it inferior either to that of Belgium or Ireland. The climate and soil 

 of Russia are better adapted to coarse fibre than either of those countries ; and 



