t 274 ] 



The plants are cut down when ripe, at the end of February 

 or beginning of March, and the seed extracted by flailing. 

 Six to eight maunds of seed being the average produce per 

 acre. The straw is useless as fodder, and it is said, green 

 plants of linseed eaten by cattle prove fatal to them. 



369. The seed yields about Jth its weight of oil. Linseed- 

 cake is a more valuable cattle food and a more valuable manure 







especially for milch cows, than rai or tori cakes, though the 

 butter produced from milk given by cows eating linseed cake 

 is softer than that from cows eating mustard or cotton seed 

 cake. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



Til, (SESAMUM INDICUM). 



T IKE white linseed, white til yields a more valuable oil. 

 White til is often grown along with cotton as a rabi crop, 

 while black til is grown along with a tall crop, such as juar, as 

 a kharif crop. The high and light alluvial and poor and rocky 

 Sub-Himalayan tracts are suitable for the til crop. Indeed all 

 oil-seed crops prefer soils rich in mineral matters, til doing 

 better on lighter classes of soils, either rocky or riparian. 

 The total area under this crop in Bengal has been estimated 

 at 346, 200 acres. The following districts may be mentioned 

 as growing fairly large quantities of til and as being specially 

 adapted for this crop : 



Percentage of 



acres. cultivated area 



Mymensingh. 74, 300 2-38 per cent. 



Patna. 30, ooo 1-89 



Jessore. 29, 100 2-31 



Backergunge. 28, 800 1-98 



Midnapore. 18, ooo 0^87 ,, 



Bogra. 14, ooo 2*06 



