It is known by various local names—­such as mani manoti by the Spaniards, and has obtained also that of cacahuete in some countries.  It has the additional term hypogea attached to it, which literally signifies subterranean.  This is apt to mislead; for the plant grows above ground as other pulse, whereas only its seed and pericarp are inserted, after blooming, into the earth.  Hence the better term hypocarpogea.

It appears to form an important article of cultivation along the whole of the west coast of Africa, and probably on the east coast, on several parts of which it was found by Loureiro ("Flor.  Cochin,” p. 430).  It was doubtless carried from Africa to various parts of equinoctial America, for it is noticed in some of the early accounts of Peru and Brazil. 800 quarters of this nut were imported into Liverpool from the West Coast of Africa, in 1849, for expressing oil, and about half that quantity in 1850.

Eighty to 90 tuns of the expressed oil are now annually imported.  The seeds contain about 44 per cent. of a clear pale yellow oil, which is largely used in India as food, and for lamps, particularly at Malwa and Bombay, &c.  Two varieties are grown in Malacca, the white seed and the brown seed, and also in Java, in the vicinity of sugar plantations; the oil cake being used as manure.  It is there known as katjang oil.

This plant, which seems to be a native of many parts of Asia, has within the last ten years been much cultivated about Calcutta.  The seeds contain abundance of fixed oil, have a faint odor, and very mild agreeable taste; 1,950 parts of seed, separated from their coverings and blanched, give 1,405 of kernels, from which, by cold pressure, 703 parts of oil are procured.  The seeds are consumed as a cheap popular luxury, being half roasted, and then eaten with salt.  The oil is calculated to serve as an efficient and very cheap substitute for olive oil, for pharmaceutical purposes.  It burns with little smoke, with a clear flame, and affords a very full bright light, answering perfectly in Argand lamps.

The oil cake affords, also, an excellent food for cattle.

The ground nut has of late become of considerable importance as an article of exportation, by English houses; yet more so by French houses at Ghent, Rouen, and Bordeaux; some of whom have contracted with the merchants of the African colonies for large quantities, sending shipping for the cargoes.  One house alone contracted for 60,000 bushels in the years 1844 and 1845.  This nut oil is so very useful to machinery that the naval steam cruisers on the coast have adopted it.  A ground-nut oil factory exists in the colony of Sierra Leone; but from the want of steam power and proper machinery, and from bad management, together with the inferior attainments of the African artisan, when compared with the European mechanic, and their facilities in quantity or quality, there is abundant scope for improvement.  The price in the colony