THE OIL-SEEDS OF COMMERCE. 
719 
seed or kernel, is of the finest quality, and fit for some of the 
most delicate purposes to which oil is put. Under the name 
of Gingelly and Teel, quantities of sesamum seed are im¬ 
ported from India and Egypt, and occasionally from other 
quarters. The small seeds are of all colours, varying from 
white to black. When carefully pressed, sesame oil is quite 
equal to the best olive. On the coast of Africa and in some 
parts of the West Indies sesame is called bennie seed. 
Cotton-seed oil is now a large article of commerce, its seed 
being abundant, and the difficulties of removing the husk 
having been got over. In cotton-seed the oil is in smaller 
proportion, and the albuminous compounds larger, than even 
in the best linseed cake. 
There are other seeds, of less commercial importance, 
which are occasionally used to obtain oil from, among which 
may be enumerated pumpkin, melon, and cucumber seed in 
India, and also under the name of Agusi, in Western Africa; 
dodder-seeds, or gold of pleasure (Camelina sativa ) in the 
south of Europe and Canada; sunflower-seed, cress-seed, 
niger-seed, the small black seed of Guizotea olevfera , called 
ef ramtil” in India; radish-seed, and safflower-seed [Carthamus 
tinctorius )—the oil of this makes excellent soap. Mustard- 
seed is also pressed for oil, 
We have confined our remarks entirely to the oil-seeds 
properly so called, distinct from the oils obtained from nuts 
and other vegetable sources, which furnish so large a propor¬ 
tion of the supplies—as the palm, cocoa-nut, olive, bassias, 
vegetable tallow, and wax, which can scarcely be looked upon, 
in an agricultural point of view, as objects of agriculture, 
although they are of high importance, both to the producer 
of the oil, the merchant, and the manufacturer. 
Professor Anderson well observed, some time ago, that 
the introduction of new oil-seeds into commerce is a matter 
which very much depends upon the farmer; for, in the more 
familiar seeds, such as linseed and rape, the value of the cake 
often exceeds half that of the seed, and the price obtainable 
for it is a matter of the utmost moment to the manufacturer, 
who cannot afford to use a seed unless he can sell the cake 
to the farmer. He must be guided also by the proportion of 
oil the seed will yield in the press, and hence a knowledge 
of the quantity of that substance contained in them is of 
importance to him. A knowledge of the composition of these 
oil-seeds is important also to the farmer, because it is quite 
possible that some of them may be sufficiently low-priced to 
permit them to compete advantageously with linseed, which 
is occasionally used, more particularly for feeding calves. 
