Si STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY^ 
It was introduced at Fond du Lac as early as 1857, by Gen, 
C. S. Hamilton, to whom I am indebted for the principal facts 
here presented. As a result of the experiments he had caused 
to be made, the General was enabled, in 1860, to procure 
about 3,000 bushels of the seed for working up into oil. He 
had been engaged in the manufacture of linseed oil since 1853; 
and as the process of manufacture in the case of rape-seed oil 
is almost exactly the same, so far as the crushing of the seed 
and the expression of the oil are concerned, no difficulty was 
found in working it up in the mills already in operation. 
At first the manufacture was confined to the crude oil. But 
the General invented a pTocess by which he was enabled to 
prepare a very excellent refined oil equal to any in the mar¬ 
ket. The war interrupted the further progress of the business 
by calling the chief operator into the military service; and it 
was not until after its close that the enterprise was again 
pushed forward. Arrangements are made for a crop of the 
seed in 1870 that, with anything like a favorable season, will 
fall scarcely short of 25,000 bushels. 
The advantages of the rape as a farm crop are several : 
1. The time of seeding—June 10th to 25th—is the most 
convenient the farmer could ask for; since it comes when 
there is but little in the way of farm work to interfere with it. 
2. Great economy of ground is often possible by making 
the rape follow upon the heels of a failing crop. For exam¬ 
ple : if a crop of wheat or other grain should fail, or give prom¬ 
ise of being so near a failure that it could hardly pay, the 
whole may be turned under, at the right time, and seeded with 
rape, the failure of which, in clean soil^ is hardly a contingency. 
3. The seed costs almost nothing. Two quarts, the value of 
which may be reckoned at 15 to 20 cents, will sow an acre. 
4. It is not troubled by any of those diseases and insect 
enemies which are so apt to cause the failure of many other 
crops. 
5. Owing to the peculiar character of the plant—its leaves 
are broad and numerous—it shades the soil; thus stifling any 
