154 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



ground-nut ; but now that it has become known how widely dis- 

 tributed it is in Africa, this opinion has been relinquished, and 

 it is held more probable that it was introduced into the New 

 World, by Portuguese slave-ships, from Africa. In the Old World 

 it is found cultivated in many tropical and sub-tropical countries, 

 though never to the same extent as on the West Coast of Africa, 

 from Senegambia and the regions adjacent down to the Gold 

 Coast, where it is a prominent article of export. Marseilles is the 

 chief market for ground-nuts and the oil they yield, as well as for 

 oil-seeds in general. In Japan and China, as well as in North 

 America, ground-nuts are usually eaten roasted, and their cultiva- 

 tion is very limited. 



6. Goma-no-abura, sesame oil. Sesaimim iiidicum^ D. C, Jap. 

 Goma, the plant that yields this food-oil, so highly prized by many 

 peoples, has long been widely distributed over most of the warmer 

 countries of the earth, from the East Coast of Asia to the shores of 

 the Mediterranean, on the East and West Coasts of Africa, and 

 also in the New World. It grows, too, in the interior of Africa, 

 where, e.g.y E. Vogel found the islands of Lake Tchad planted 

 with it. De CandoUe, from good grounds, regarded India as its 

 original home, and both forms — with black seeds {Sesamuni orien- 

 taie, L., Jap. Kuro-goma) and with white (5. indiciim, L., Jap. 

 Shiro-goma) — as mere varieties of the same thing. 



In India, sesame goes by the names Til and Gingeli. In China 

 it is called, according to Bretschneider, Chi-ma ; and on the West 

 Coast of Africa, /Benni-seed. Marseilles is the great market for 

 sesame, as for ground-nuts. Vast quantities of both the white and 

 the black grain are imported thither from India, Siam, Formosa, 

 the Levant, the East and West Coasts of Africa, and other sources. 

 As a rule the white and black grain bear to each other, in price, 

 the relation of lo to 9; so in Japan, too, where the oil of the former, 

 or Shiro-goma, sells at 30 sen per sho, when that of Kuro-goma 

 stands at 27 sen per sho. 



The sesame plant is a herb-like Bignoniaceae. Its stiff stalk, 

 furrowed on four sides, attains a height of i m., and bears, at its 

 axils, the short-stemmed white blossoms, which have some re- 

 semblance in size and shape to those of our Digitalis species, — a 

 fact that was hinted at in the names formerly in frequent use, 

 " white or oriental fox-glove," The fruit is a four-chambered cap- 

 sule about 3 cm. long, with four rounded edges. Its countless seeds 

 are found in four rows about a central strip. In size and shape 

 they remind one somewhat of linseed (being a flattened oval and 

 pointed), but differ from them in colour, and in having no lustre. 

 According to Fliickiger's careful experiments,^ their proportion of 

 oil is 56*33 per cent, of which 48 to 50 per cent, can be obtained by 

 pressure, and the whole amount by extraction. Sesame-oil, especi- 

 ally when cold-pressed, has a beautiful clear colour, and a specific 

 ^ " Schweizerische Wochenschrift fiir Pharmacie," 1868, p. 282 ff. 



