PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION OF FATS AND OILS. 17 
increase in the quantity of olives available for oil, except in so far as 
the young orchards, already planted, come into bearing during the 
next year or two. 
Although olive oil as a food and medicinal oil can be replaced very 
largely by other vegetable oils, there are one or two technical uses, 
wool spinning, for instance, for which no entirely satisfactory sub- 
stitute has yet been found. The grade of oil, however, required by 
these trades is such that an extracted oil can be employed, and this 
country ought to be using more generally a solvent process on the 
spent olive oil pomace which is now wasted. The custom of ex- 
tracting the final press cake with carbon bisulphid or other solvent, 
as practiced in Italy and France, has not been deemed commercially 
profitable in the United States. The oil obtained by a carbon bi- 
sulphid extraction is dark green, due to the presence of chlorophyl, 
the green coloring matter of plants, dissolved from the pomace by 
the solvent, and has a rank, disagreeable odor and flavor. Such 
oil, imported under the name "olive oil foots 7 ' or " sulphured olive 
oil," is used in making Castile soap, and is said to be satisfactory for 
other technical purposes. 
With our improved processes of refining, it is even possible to 
make a low-grade edible oil from extracted oils, although they are 
nearly tasteless. As there is no market for this sort of oil, it has 
been customary in foreign countries to mix with it a highly flavored 
oil to form a blend which very closely resembles, in both taste and 
color, a virgin oil. While this substitution of a blended refined oil 
for a virgin product can not be commended, oil which is now wasted 
in the pomace from the olive oil mills should be saved. Where the 
press cake from an oil mill is used as food for man or animals the 
5 to 8 per cent of oil it contains is, of course, not lost, but oil mill 
wastes, such as spent olive pomace, which are not fed to stock, 
should be extracted whenever possible. 
PEANUT OIL. 
RAPID RISE IN FAVOR. 
Although American peanut oil was an almost unknown product 
before the Great War, in 1917 it ranked third in the vegetable oils made 
from home-grown products, coconut oil being produced exclusively 
from imported copra. Until recently most of the imported oil came 
from France and Holland, but these countries now have scarcely 
enough to supply their own needs. China, however, has come into 
the market, and is shipping us large quantities of a rather poor grade 
of peanut oil. 
Even with the marked increase in the importation of peanut oil, 
from a little over 7,600,000 pounds in 1912 to 27,400,000 pounds in 
96503°— 19— Bull. 769 3 
