Edible Products. 



150 



[March 1907. 



THE GROUND-NUT OR PEA-NUT, II. 



(Arachis Hypogwa, Linn.) 

 Uses. 



Chief and foremost amongst the uses to which this plaut is put must be 

 placed its yield of oil. The trade between the tropics and Europe, by which India 

 and Africa pour the seeds they produce into modern oil mills in France, Germany, 

 England, etc., is of recent growth. Older than it is the primitive method by which 

 the negroes, both of Africa and America, extract a portion of the oil for their service. 



The oil, which closely resembles olive oil, replaces it largely in Europe, 

 and is used as salad oil, also in soap-making, burning, dyeing, tanning, and cloth- 

 cleaning. It enters into such salves as cold-cream, pomades, &c. As an oil for 

 lubricating it has some use, and it forms a very important ingredient in the manu- 

 facture of oleomargarine. It also forms an adulterant of olive and almond oils, 

 and is in its turn adulterated with poppy, sesamum, and cotton-seed oils. In India 

 the sweet oil of the bazaars is a mixture of this with saffiower and sesamum oils, 

 the seeds being pressed together (Dymock, Materia Medica, India, ed 2, p. 216). 

 Arachis oil finds a further use as an adulterant of " ghi," or clarified butter, and is 

 recognised as officinal in the Indian Pharmacopoeia replacing olive oil. 



Almost wherever grown, a portion of the produce is converted into oil for 

 local use. In Java it has long served as an oil for illuminating, and for a less period 

 in India. It burns with a clear and smokeless flame, and lasts longer than olive 

 oil in the proportion of 9i hours to 8 hours per oz., but gives less light. Japan and 

 China produce a small quantity of oil, which, however, hardly finds its way into 

 the European market, as in a small measure does that from India. Iu China a 

 medicinal value is attributed to it (Debeaux, Sur la pharmacie des Chinois, 

 Paris, 1865). 



The use of the seed as a. food is very extensive. It may be eaten when 

 unripe, and has then, when cooked, the flavour of kidney beans- When ripe, it is 

 too oily to be more than an adjunct to the diet, aud Monterio {Angola and the river 

 Congo), narrates how a balanced food is obtained by the negroes by adding to it 

 such starchy fruits as bananas. Roasted in the shell it is sold in immense quantities 

 in the streets of the cities and towns of Eastern North America. The seeds in 

 Europe have served as adulterants for coffee, cocoa, and spices. For adulterating 

 coffee they are pressed in moulds and passed as coffee beans (Vogl. Die wichtig- 

 sten vegetabilischen Nahrungs u. Oenussmiltel, Berlin, 1899, p. 321). The liquor 

 from them is a clear reddish-brown with little taste. "Austrian coffee" is the 

 name by which this counterfeit product goes. As cocoa they are pounded and 

 mixed with the true material, and the Algerian name, " Cacaouette " has reference 

 to this use. Sweetmeats are made from them to a small extent. The seeds ground 

 finely after being roasted make a butter-like mass, sold as "Pea-nut butter" in 

 the United States {Agricultural Journal, Natal, ii., 1899, p. 437). Monterio, again, 

 states that such a preparation highly seasoned is used to stave off hunger by the 

 people of Angola when on the march. Pounded nuts in the tropics enter into 

 stews and curries. The roots are said to have been used for adulterating liquorice. 



The cake left after oil-expression as performed in European mills is a 

 valuable animal food, and some use of it for human beings has been made recently. 

 The meal which the more primitive mills of China, Java, and India leave serves 

 as a manure in these countries. 



The hay is rich in feeding stuffs, as analyses shew (see Uhlitzsch in Die 

 landioirtschaftichen Versuchs-Stationen, xli., p. 388, and U. S. Dept. Agric. Farmer's 

 Bull,, No. 25, p. 5). It is made use of in Asia to a small extent, and on a larger scale 



