374 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



meal is then put into hair bags and subjected to 

 hydraulic pressure, from twelve to fifteen bags 

 separated by metal plates being pressed at the 

 same time. A bag contains about ten kilo- 

 grammes (twenty-two pounds) of meal. The first 

 pressing, which furnishes the high-grade oil, is 

 made without heating the meal. This pressing 

 lasts usually about one hour. For the second 

 pressing the bags are generally emptied, the 

 meal reground, and brought to a temperature of 

 86 deg. to 122 deg. Fahrenheit, according to the 

 quality and condition of the nuts. The same 

 amount of pressure is applied as for the first 

 pressing, and the same press may be used. A 

 smaller yield but a finer grade of oil results from 

 the second pressing when the supplementary 

 grinding of the meal is dispensed with. In some 

 mills a third pressure is applied, but this is an 

 unusual practice. The yield of oil varies with 

 the origin and condition of the nuts. The Senegal 

 peanuts in the shell yield about 33 per cent, of 

 their gross weight, the Gambia pbanuts 31^ to 

 32 percent. Both of these varieties yiold from 21 

 to 23 per cent, on the first pressing, aud 10 to 

 11 per cent, on the second pressing. The average 

 oil yield of the shelled peanuts is about 39 per 

 cent, for the Indian nuts, and 42 per cent, for 

 the Mozambique. After running from the 

 presses peanut oil does not need refining, but 

 is simply filtered. It is then tit for consumption 

 as salad oil. Bleaching is resorted to only in 

 order to produce the white oil required in the 

 manufacture of margarine. — Royal Society of 

 Arts Journal, Sept. 8, 



THE PEA-NUT. 



The valuable paper in the Journal of this 

 date on the ' Pea-nut ' industry of Marseilles, 

 is defective for its many Anglo-Indian readers 

 in not stating that the ' Pea-nut ' is their 

 1 Earth-nut,' 'Ground-nut,' and ' Manilla' gram 

 [' gram ' = Cicer arietinum, the ' Chick-pea'], the 

 Arachis hypoguia of Linneus, known to the 

 natives of India by the names of mung-phali 

 ['Phaseolus Mungo- fruit'], bliui-chana [' Earth- 

 gram '], chini-badam [' Chinese-almond '], and 

 vilati-mung [' Foreign-jHwrcgr '] etc., etc.; this 

 leguminous plant, although now cultivated over 

 all India and the East Indies, from Abyssinia 

 to China, being a native of South America ; 

 and one of the numerous economic plants of 

 that continent introduced, through the inter- 

 mediation of the formerly puissant Portuguese 

 into Africa and Asia ; one of the greatest services 

 rendered by any nation to humanity at large, 

 but for which they never get any credit in 

 the standard histories of Portugal. 



For tastefulnoss the ' Earth-nut,' or 'Pea-nut,' 

 may be classed with the 'Cashew-nut,' and the 

 ' Pistachio-nut,' the Pistache de terre of the 

 French ; but all three are most indigestible. 

 The oil, in salads, is a good enough substitute 

 for olive oil ; but both olive oil and ' Pea-nut' 

 oil are inferior in delicacy of smell and taste 

 to almond oil ; while almond oil itself yields 

 the palm for purity of savour to Sesamum oil, 

 the product of Sesamum orientate, or indicum, 

 of Linneus— the fita, that is 'the oil,' par ex* 



cellenee, of India; which from the first dawnings 

 of human history in the valleys of the Tigris 

 and Euphrates, and the Nile [Semitic sim-sim, 

 Hebrew semen= i o\V generally, Arabic al-jul-jul- 

 an, our 'Gingelly,' etc.], has been used through- 

 out the East for food, both in the grain and 

 the oil pressed from it, and the oil also for light- 

 ing purposes : this latter use of it having given 

 rise to the phrase : — ' Open Sesame !' — meaning, 

 simply, as we should say, 4 Strike a light,' 

 'Bring a candle,' ' Open up the darkness.' 'Open 

 Wheat !' 'Open Rye !' 'Open Barley !' were of 

 no avail, and only when Kasim cried ' Open 

 Sesame !' was the treasurer in 'All Baba and the 

 Forty Thieves ' revealed. I was the first to point 

 this out in the first edition of ray official ' Cata- 

 logue of the Economic Botanical Products ' of 

 the Government Central Museum, afterwards 

 [1857-8] enlarged into the Victoria and Albert 

 Museum, Bombay. Cotton and Sesamum are the 

 two most reliable crops in all India; and the 

 proverb runs throughout Southern India : — 

 'When a failure [of the harvest] is feared, at once 

 sow Sesamum.' 



Along the Concans coast of Western India the 

 household illuminant used by the fisher-folk is a 

 fish through which a wick is drawn, and as re- 

 quired, lighted ; and it is remarkable that the 

 brazen lamps used in the temples of the Concans 

 and up, over the ghats, in the valleys on their 

 Deccau slopes, is formed ou the longitudinal 

 section of a fish, head and tail and all, with a 

 cup-like hollow, below its belly to serve as a 

 pedestal, and hold the oil, the wick being drawn 

 out into its head. 



September £th, 1911. Geokge Birdwood. 



— Royal Society of Arts Journal, Sept. 15. 



WHITE PEPPER. 



According to a contemporary, the use of 

 pepper was known to the ancient Greeks aud 

 Romans as early as the time of Alexander the 

 Great, being a staple article of commerce in the 

 early trade between Europe and India before 

 the days of cotton, tea, and sugar. Its excessive 

 cost is said to have been one of the inducements 

 which led the early Portuguese navigators to 

 seek a sea route to India. 



Pepper is entirely tropical in its requirements 

 and seems to thrive best in a moist, hot climate 

 with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches 

 and a soil rich in leaf mould. The plant grows 

 some twenty feet in height, but in cultivation is 

 usually restricted to ten or twelve feet. The 

 leaves are glossy, broadly ovate, with five to 

 seven nerves, and grow opposite and alternate 

 to a pendulous spike five to eight inches long, 

 containing twenty to thirty white flowers that 

 ripen into a OQe-seeded fruit with a fleshy ex- 

 terior. This fleshy berry, covering a soft stone, 

 is about the size of a pea and is at first green, 

 but in ripening turns red and then yellow. The 

 berry contains a resin, to which it owes its hot, 

 pungent taste, and a volatile oil that gives off 

 an aromatic scent. 



The white pepper is the black pepper decor- 

 ticated by maceration and rubbing. The plant 

 produces fruit in three years, and is probably at 

 its best for the next seven oc eight years, a 



