THE GROUND-NUT AND ITS OIL. 34.9 



French call them Pistache de terre, in allusion to their resemblance to 

 Pistachio-nuts. 



At the present day, the arachis is found in a state of cultivation all 

 over the hottest part of the tropics. It is, nevertheless, almost certain 

 that, like maize, tobacco, and pine-apples, it was unknown till the dis- 

 covery of America, and that every region in the old world where it is 

 now grown owed it to Brazil ; so that we have in this plant a further 

 example of the rapidity with which vegetables will take possession of 

 soils where the climate is suitable. In Brazil it is known tinder the 

 name of " Mindoubi," and has long been used there parched for food, and 

 to extract oil from. The roasted seeds are sometimes used as a substi- 

 tute for chocolate. The nut, according to Dr. Davy, abounds with 

 starch as well as oil, and a large proportion of albuminous matter, and 

 in no other instance had he found so large a proportion of starch mixed 

 with oil. 



Although the ground-nttt is sometimes eaten, we agree with M, 

 Poiteau, who has lately published an account of the plant, in regarding 

 it as a very indifferent variety of the nut kind, whether raw or roasted. 

 Its great value is caused by the abundance of oil which it contains. Olive 

 oil, largely employed in dressing woollen cloths, has become too dear 

 for manufacturing purposes. Olive trees have of late years been unpro- 

 ductive, and are disappearing from some of the Italian states ; they are 

 now, moreover, reported to be attacked by some kind of mildew, so that 

 a good substitute has become a matter of first necessity. Such a substi- 

 tute has been found in ground-nut oil. According to Dumas, it was a 

 house at Marseilles that first thought of importing this substitute, 

 About twenty years ago, four or five kilos were imported by way of ex- 

 periment, and so great was the success which attended it, that in 1852 

 the imports into France amounted to the enormous quantity of 70,000 

 tons, a figure beyond even that of sugar. 



The chief places of export for ground-nuts from the west coast are 

 Senegal and its dependencies, Sierra Leone, and Gambia. But it is also 

 produced on the east coast, at Natal and Zanzibar, although not at pre- 

 sent for shipment. 



Captain Burton, in his " Lake Regions of Central Africa," says the 

 common oil of Eastern Africa is that of the karanga, or ground-nut. 

 When ghee (fluid butter) is not procurable, the Arabs eat it, like cocoa- 

 nut oil, with beans, manioc, sweet j^otato, and other vegetables. 



The prepared oil expressed from the ground-nut is admitted by all 

 to be of the purest quality, and fit for some of the most delicate pur- 

 poses to which oil is put. 



" There is no reason (observes the ' Natal Mercury ') why this colony, 

 and especially the coast districts, with their grease-craving machinery, 

 should not be wholly supplied from its internal resources, or why the 

 article should not be produced in sufficient quantity for exportation to 

 the Cape town and home markets. 



