1 June, 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 439 
reached 5,000 dollars (£1,000). What was the total outlay to produce this 
result ? The Messrs. Cresley set it down roughly at 10 dollars (£2) for hired 
help, and 44°50 dollars (£9 15s. 5d.) for seed, boards for beds, laths for shade, 
and fertilisers not included. The article winds up by stating that only a few 
acres are being cultivated, and these only in localities where wild ginseng is 
indigenous. 
The roots should be set with the tops 2 inches below the surface of the 
ground, at an angle of about 45 degrees. Seed should be planted 1 inch deep— 
never more than that. The roots are at their best in five years, providing that 
proper care has been exercised in planting, fertilising, and cultivating. 
CASTOR OIL MANUFACTURE. 
Up to the present nothing has been done locally in the way of extracting 
oil from the castor oil plant. Briefly, the operations of oil extraction are by 
expression, by boiling with water, or by the agency of alcohol. A comparatively 
simple process can be tried by anyone interested, and a good oil should result 
if the seed is of the right variety. s 
First, cleanse the seeds from fragments of the husks and from dust, and 
submit them to a gentle heat, but not greater than can be borne by the hand, 
which process makes the oil more fluid and more easily expressed. A whitish, 
oily fluid is thus obtained, which is boiled with a large quantity of water, and 
all impurities are skimmed off as they rise to the surface ; the water dissolves 
the mucilage and starch, and the albumen is coagulated by the heat, thus 
forming a layer between the oil and the water; the clear oil is then removed 
and_boiled with a small quantity of water until aqueous vapour ceases to rise, 
and a small quantity taken out in a phial remains perfectly transparent and 
cool. 
The effect of this is to clarify the oil and rid it of volatile acid matter. 
Care is necessary not to carry the heat too far, as the oil would acquire a 
brownish colour and an acid taste. In India the seed is first shelled and then 
crushed between rollers, placed in hempen cloths and pressed. The oil is 
afterwards heated with water in a tin boiler until the water boils. This serves 
to separate the mucilage and albumen, the product being then strained through 
flannel and put into canisters. Any oil-press would suflice for extracting dil 
for ordinary purposes, and by decantation and some process of filtration it could 
be purified. Cheap wooden rollers would serve the purpose, and these could 
be driven by a horse-gear, after the fashion of driving the old horse-mills for 
crushing sugar-cane. 
SEED POTATOES THAT HAVE SPROUTED. 
A correspondent of the Agricultural Gazette, London, writes :— 
No doubt seed potatoes are weakened when they have sprouted badly in 
the damp or elsewhere, the shoots being rubbed off. But a trial which I have 
just made has given results of a decidedly reassuring character. I took three 
otatoes with sprouts almost all over them, so that there seemed to be no eye 
left unshot, pulled off all the sprouts, and planted them in a box of earth. 
All three have sent up several vigorous shoots. But a more severe test than 
even this was made. Taking another potato with five eyes all shot out, I 
broke off the shoots, cut out each eye with a small piece of the tuber around 
and under it, and planted the eyes. All five have grown two shoots at least to 
each eye. This has surprised me, as I did not know before that a potato would 
sprout a second time from the same eye. This it has done, as I am absolutely 
certain that no unsprouted eye was on any one of the sets planted,—B. 
