368 



The World's Commercial Products 



The fruits, showing some resemblance to small sunflower seeds have a hard exterior, within 

 which lie the seeds containing about thirty per cent, of oil. 



Niger Seed Oil is expressed from the fruits of Guizotia abyssinica, an annual plant belong- 

 ing to the Compositae order. It is cultivated to a considerable extent in British India, where 

 it was introduced from Abyssinia or Egypt. 



Sunflower Oil. The sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is an American plant, probably 



indigenous to Mexico, that 

 has passed into universal cul- 

 tivation for the sake of its 

 flowers. As an economic 

 plant it has received most 

 attention in southern Russia. 



SEMI-DRYING OILS 



• Cotton Seed Oil is a 

 good type of semi-drying 

 oil, neither useful for mixing 

 with paints or varnishes, nor 

 suitable' for lubrication. It 

 has, however, come promin- 

 ently into use as a salad or 

 |T| iff*-- "ffiOg % ; ' i lli|gq|r r * l % $F ■%*- ' rjr* JmW-/ Mi w^&2k table oil, as a substitute for 



lard, and in the manufacture 



of oleo-margarine, while the 



cheaper qualities pass to the 



C^3I^ R^I."i ! ^HP t; i}/! $ ' } /* W^ $H^Fj^i soap factory. To Americans 



must be given the credit 

 of recognising the inherent 

 capabilities of the oil, and 

 this, combined with the very 

 large quantity of cotton 

 grown -in the United States, 

 has given that country a 

 long lead in the production 

 of cotton seed oil and allied 

 products. 



So much care has been 

 bestowed: in America on the 

 treatment of cotton seed for 

 the oil, hulls, and cake that 

 an account of . the processes furnishes a s good instance of the intricate details of an oil mill. 

 As the seed is ginned it is removed to* the mills where storage accommodation on a large scale 

 5 is*provided. In-the large factories as much as 200 tons of seed'are pressed for oil in a day. 

 Nearly all the work at these mills is performed" mechanically. The seed having arrived at 

 the mill is raised to the top -of the store by ■bucket elevators into a screw "conveyor" that 

 distributes it wherever available. As required, it drops into another distributor that transfers 

 the r seed to the revolving " boll-screen," a cylinder perforated with holes sufficiently large to 

 let the seed pass through, while bolls, fragments of stalk, and other large impurities are 

 retained. From the boll-screen the seed passes to another revolving perforated screen, in 

 which the smaller impurities, dust and sand, are separated. After this the cleaned seed is 



Photo by W. H. Johnson, Esq., F.L.S. 



OIL PALM 



