OIL CAKE AS MANURE. 



Another valuable manure which is to a certain, and can be to a 

 greater extent produced locally, is oil cake. The local production 

 is limited almost entirely in Assam to that from mustard seed, 

 and the imported almost entirely to castor cake. In his book 

 Mr. Bamber mentions various other of these materials which might be 

 used, including margosa cake, cocoanut cake, poppy cake, niger 

 cake, cotton cake, sesamum cake, mahua cake, and linseed cake. 

 Hut in order that a manure of this type should be valuable it must 

 either be produced locally, or else be so rich as to pay the expense 

 of transit to the place where it is to be used. Of all this list the only 

 ones which could in any way be worth while importing would be 

 cotton cake and linseed cake. Both of these are fairly rich in 

 manurial matter, and together with the cake obtained from castor 

 form the only ones which it would pay to carry to Assam, and 

 which are obtainable in sufficient quantity. I had at one time some 

 hopes of mahua cake (from Bassia latijolia) but the analysis I made 

 showed it to be not worth the cost of importation.* 



Local supplies should, however, here again, form the chief source 

 from which the manure is derived. Mustard is grown in large quan- 

 tities practically throughout the province for the production of oil. 

 In some cases the seeds are exported direct to Calcutta as such ; in 

 many others, they are pressed locally by native presses. I wish to 

 insist here on the necessity of increasing, so far as is possible, this 

 local pressing of mustard seed, in order that the oil may be saved 

 for local consumption and the manure for the tea. Why for instance 

 should a small bonus over and above the price obtainable in the 

 market not be offered for all mustard seed brought to the factory, when 

 the oil would be expressed and sold to the coolies on the garden (where 

 the demand is always great), and the cake applied as manure ? Or 

 alternatively there seems no objection to encouraging the growth of 

 native local presses, by giving a slightly higher price for the cake ? 

 Or even, as was suggested to me by one of the leading Assam 

 planters, why not grow mustard on some of the waste land attached 

 to the grant, and press the crop, which should amount to twenty bushels 

 per acre, at the factory, by means of an oil press which is not very 

 expensive ? This would only require labour in November and when 



The sample I had, contained only Nitrogen 3'ii per cent. Phosphoric Acid 1*44 

 per cent, and Lime '20 per cent- 



