CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES AND PRODUCTS OP INDIA. 139 



It appears that this oil, if properly prepared would, from its thin and 

 limpid character, be admirably adapted to supersede many of the pur- 

 poses, if not all, for which the more expensive olive oils of southern France 

 and Italy are now used, and would be an admirable watchmaker's oil. 

 This is thrown out as a suggestion for some practical men to decide. 

 The production of this seed is only limited by the production of the 

 poppy. 



In Lucknow each ryot sows from two to four beegahs in the month 

 of October. It is capable of being cultivated all over Oude. The oil is 

 extracted by the common native press. The cost of the seed is 10 seers 

 for the rupee, and the oil sells at 3 seers for the rupee ; two-fifths of 

 the weight of the seed employed is about the proportion of oil yielded 

 by the native process. The poppy seed is eaten by the natives made 

 into sweetmeats, provided the opium has been extracted from the seed 

 vessel, otherwise it is bitter and narcotic, and under these circumstances 

 the oil extracted is also bitter. It is used for cooking and burning. 



These seeds are grown to a very considerable extent all over this pro- 

 vince, and are, at least the sesamum is, beginning to be an important 

 item in its exports, principally to Marseilles, where it is used for the 

 manufacture of Lucca oil. Large quantities are brought down from 

 Sumbulpore ; and Ungool, Dhenkanal, Hindole, and Talchar also supply 

 a good deal of these seed oils. In the above-named States the cultivation 

 of these crops can be extended to an indefinite degree, as the principal 

 oil seeds there grown, the sesamum and castor, are sown broadcast over 

 slightly tilled land, from which the jungle has been superficially cleared, 

 or on rocky ground unfitted for the cultivation of any other crop. The 

 oil of these seeds is expressed in the common native Ghana, or oil 

 mill. For domestic use the farmer generally extracts the oil from the 

 above as from other oil seeds, by making a mash of the seed and boiling 

 it, by which process he obtains more oil of a better quality than from 

 the oil mill, though the cold-pressed oil is purer or clearer. Mustard 

 seed oil is used generally for culinary purposes, and with the other oils 

 for burning. The linseed plant, though grown extensively in the Sum- 

 bulpore district, and more or less all over the province, is nowhere cul- 

 tivated for the flax it yields. All these oils are mixed together and sold 

 under the name of mols, or thick oil. The local price of this common 

 oil is, at the time of writing, 17s. 6d. per Cuttack maund, 28 of which go 

 to the ton weight. A good deal of this oil is exported to Calcutta, where 

 the ruling prices are more than double the local. The most valuable of 

 these oilseeds, namely, the sesamum, is of two kinds, named respec- 

 tively Mag~h.ee and Bhodoe, after the months in which they are plucked. 

 The latter is the plumper seed, and yields most oil. The season and 

 prospects of the crop so govern the rates for these seeds that no 

 average prices can be safely'given. 



