854 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, jJuxE 1, 1900. 
'■. PEANUT OIL. 
In reference to the question as to whether the 
manufacture of peanut oil is possible in the United 
States, Consul Skinner, of Marseilles, wiites: "The 
belief here is that the American nut is richer in 
oil than the African, and this qQality can be increased 
by careful cultivation. Little change either in method 
Of cultivation or price average is looked for in Africa. 
It ia true that a large part of Africa is believed to 
be available only for a crop of peanuts, but the 
native labor, though chesp, is lazy and thriftless and 
hard to olbtaiu when required. The soil is readily 
exhausted, and nothing is done to restore its virtue. 
There are uo means of interior transportation, and 
the crop must be handled laboriously several times 
before it is loaded for the port of destination. It 
will be years before notable improvement can be 
expected. I am disposed to believe that the trade 
in Marseilles will not so much speculate on the pros- 
pects of success of American enterpiise in this field 
as it will wonder why the effort has been so long 
delayed." Touching the process employed in Trance, 
the Consul writes : 
"Peanuts are scarcely ever ground whole. Such a 
process produces an inferior quality of oil and a 
cake of little value. In fact, many of the nuts ar- 
rive in a decorticated state, after which the inner 
or red akin is removed as much as possible by a 
system of scrapers and winnowers. Particles of the 
inner skin will cling to the kernel under all circum- 
stances and can be plainly seen in the cake. The 
greatest pains are taken with edible oil. For this 
the nuts are commonly received unshelled at the 
mill, and there decorticated by a special apparatus in 
coBjunction with vibrating and ventilating machinery, 
the process somewhat resembling the wheat-cleaning 
operations in flour mills. 
" The husking of the peanuts is performed by a 
pair of grooved rollers, adjustable in order that the 
space between them may be increased or diminished 
according to the approximate average size of the 
nuts to be hutked. The rotation of these rollers is 
quite rapid, and the ridges of one of the rollers fit 
into the center of the grooves of the other roller. 
In the first process the hnska are completely crushed, 
and a good many of the kernels are also split. This 
broken mass of husks and kernels is then sepa- 
rated by means of air currents, similar to the win- 
nowing process applied to wheat in flour mills. 
"Now, if the peauuts used are of old crop the 
kernel is likely to be dry, and the light, inner red 
skin of the nut becomes dettiched in the first hus- 
king process. A large proportion of it is removed 
in the first ventilator, and nearly all of that which 
atill adheres to the kernel ia removed by the follow- 
ing process : 
" The kernels are passed over a rapidly oscillat- 
ing sieve, the coarse wired meshes cracking this red 
skin, which latter is then drawn off by another ven- 
tilating machine. I cannot give the full details of 
the cleaning process of the mass which emerges from 
the grooved rollers ; but my informant assures me 
that no specially constructed machinery is employed 
for this purpose, the whole work being executed by 
a combination of oscillating sieves and strong afr 
currents. 
" If the peanuts are of ne w crop it is most diffi- 
cult to remove the red skin entiiely, as in this 
case it adheres quite firmly to the kernel, and thus 
the kernels of new crop nuts generally go under the 
presses with the greater part of the red skin still 
adhering to them. In order to more thoroughly cleanse 
the kernels before they are prepared for the presses, 
the new-crop nuts undergo the same process as the 
Old crop iruts. 
" When the kernels have been separated and cleaned, 
they are ground, preparatory to being pressed. The 
pressing takes place in the same manner in which 
other oleaginous seeds are pressed, the meal being 
enveloped in strong, fibrcus mats and subjected to 
hydraulic pis.^Hure. The resuUing cake is' then re- 
ground the oil remaining in the meal secured aa 
in the first instance.^ The oil is graded according 
to first, second or third extraction. 
" The clarifying is done by rneans of filters, and 
the bleaching, if it may be termed thus, is done 
by the admixture of so-called 'terre a foulon ' 
(fuller's earth), a highly porous mineral substance. 
The oil which is to be treated is poured into large 
vats and a certain quantity of 'terre a foulcn' is 
added. The whole is mechanically stirred for some 
time, and then allowed to rest for a certain period, 
during which the colouring particles contained in the 
oil are absorbed by the pores of the mineral. 
"The husks are of little or no value. When ground 
and mixed wiih cake (also grouud) they form an 
inferior graJc of cattle feed. About the only animals 
to which they can ba fed without admixture ure 
goats. When coal prices are very high, a number 
of crushers employ the hutks as fuel. Crushers 
prefer to use new-crop nuts (despite the fact that 
the product is often inferior to old-crop oil), as they 
extract more oil from them. Decorticated nuts shouM 
average 37 per cent, of their weight in oil." — Biud- 
streets. 
^ 
SISAL GRASS UN MEXICO. 
Henequen ; " jeniquen," Spanish ; ci, Maya ; " sisal 
grass," corameicial term; Aijave sisalensis, scientific 
term. 
This plant has been in use among the ancient 
inhabitants of Yucatan from the earliest times. The 
writer has found it imbedded in the form of cord in the 
stucco figures that ornamented the facades of the mys- 
terious ruined cities of Yucatan. There are two wild 
varieties of henequen, called by the natives " cahum " 
and "chelem." The fiber of these wild plants is used 
to some extent by the natives in the making of 
cordage for domestic use, and some claim that ham- 
mocks made from the fiber of the cahum are the best. 
It is, however, the cultivated plant that furniphes 
commerce with the fiber known as sisal grass. Sisal 
being the old port from which the fiber was first 
exported. 
Like the wild plant, the cultivated one is divided 
into t'.vo varieties — the " zacci," or white hemp, and 
the " yaxci," or green hemp. The zacci is considered 
the finest and best, but the yaxci ia a good fiber, 
and by the time the henequen fiber reaches New 
York or Boston, it is simply as sisal grass, of a 
good or medium quality, as the case may be. 
It has been generally supposed that aisal grass as 
an article of commerce has been known only with- 
in the last fifty years. This is a miatake. 
Between the years 1750-1780, quite a furor waa created 
in commercial countries of the Old World by the 
discovery that the fiber of a plant found in Yucatan 
was good for ship cordage. Spain sent over a royal 
commission to report upon the discovery, and in 
a few years many of Spain's commercial and war 
vessels wei"e using cordage made from henequen. 
For some reason, probably because of the primitive 
method of preparing it, the use of the fiber gradually 
declined, until at the commencement of this century, 
the former trade had been forgotten. 
In 1847, Yucatan, nnil then a cattle. producing cotton- 
growing and logwood-exporting country, was in the 
throes of an Indian war. The Maya Indians had risen 
In rebellion and had succeded in driving the white race 
out of the most fertile portions of the peninsu'a, forcing 
them to rely for means of subsistence upon the product? 
of a sterile rocky belt, too poor to sustain cattle in any- 
numbers. Henequen was the only useful plant 
that would grow on such a soil. The first planta- 
tion, BO far as I can learn, was planted in 1848, 
and the 50 acres planted were cleared by the use 
of the tonka, the primitive cleaner used by the native 
Blaya. There was a good demand for the new fiber 
in ship ligging, and it gradually came into general 
use, until sisal waa a well-known article of commerce. 
The Tonka was a piece of hard wood, shaped some- 
thing like a handsaw, having the end curved in. 
