FIXED OILS. 211 



and kept separate from that which is subsequently 

 obtained. 



At Picardy, Alsace, and most of Flanders it is 

 the practice to put a small quantity of water among 

 the paste in the chauffer-pan, by which the produce 

 is increased, and after the second pressing, the oil- 

 cake which is left is consigned to the farmers, and 

 used by them for fattening cattle. The cake is, 

 however, still moist, and more oil might by a farther 

 process be extracted ; the Dutch are, therefore, not 

 content to yield it up, until they have wrung from it 

 still more of its oleaginous matter. They mix no water 

 in the paste the first time it is put into the boiler, as 

 they consider this addition very much deteriorates 

 the quality of the oil ; but after the second pressing, 

 they again break down the cake and submit it to thie 

 pestles arid mortars again to be pounded into meal. 

 It is then put into another chauffer-pan with a small 

 quantity of water, and kept for some time at the 

 heat of boiling water, the whole being stirred without 

 cessation. The paste is then put in the hair bags 

 for the third time and pressed, and though the oil 

 thus obtained is of a very inferior description, it sells 

 for a sufficient price to remunerate the miller for the 

 extra labour. The cake is now as dry and as hard 

 as a piece of board ; but even in this state it is not 

 wholly useless or worthless, as it is still found to 

 afford nourishment to cattle. 



That careful and industrious people, the Dutch, 

 are so superior to all others in the manner of ex- 

 pressing the oil, that they even draw a profit from 

 the wasteful practice of their neighbours, and some 

 small mills in Holland are actually used solely for 

 extracting oil from cakes purchased from the French 

 and the people of Brabant, who have rejected them 

 as being of no farther use in their own oil-presses. 

 J3ut the nicety and care by which the Dutch pro- 



