POPPY OIL.—­About 80 cwt. of poppy seed is imported annually into Hull, and small quantities come into other ports to be crushed into oil.  The seeds of the poppy yield, by expression, 56 per cent. of a bland and very valuable oil, of a pale golden color, fluid to within ten degrees of the freezing point of water.  It dries easily, is inodorous, and of an agreeable flavor like olive oil.

Dr. J.V.C.  Smith, writing from Switzerland, to the editor of the “Boston Medical Journal,” says:—­

“Immense crops are raised here of articles wholly unknown to the American farmers, and perhaps the kinds best fitted to particular localities where grain and potatoes yield poorly under the best efforts.  One of these is poppies.  Thousands of acres are at this moment ready for market—­which the traveller takes for granted, as he hurries by, are to be manufactured into opium.  They are not, however, intended for medical use at all, but for a widely different purpose.  From the poppy seed a beautiful transparent oil is made, which is extensively used in house painting.  It is almost as colorless as water, and possesses so many advantages over the flax seed oil that it may ultimately supersede that article.  Where flax cannot be grown poppies often can be, in poor sandy soil.  Linseed oil is becoming dearer, and the demand for paint is increasing.  With white lead, poppy oil leaves a beautiful surface, which does not afterwards change, by the action of light, into a dirty yellow.  Another season some one should make a beginning at home in this important branch of industry.  The oil may be used for other purposes, and even put in the cruet for salads.”

TALLICOONAH or KUNDAH OIL, is obtained from the seeds of the Carapa Touloucouna (of the Flore de Senegambie).  The tree grows to the height of 40 feet; the fruit is a large, somewhat globular five-celled capsule.  The seeds (of which there are from 18 to 30 in each capsule), vary in size from that of a chesnut to a hen’s egg.  They are three-cornered, of a brownish or blackish red color.  It is found abundantly in the Timneh country, and over the colony of Sierra Leone.  It is manufactured in the following manner:—­The nuts having been well dried in the sun, are hung up in wicker racks or hurdles, and exposed to the smoke of the huts, after which they are roasted and subjected to trituration in large wooden mortars, until reduced to a pulp.  The mass is then boiled, when the supernatant oil is removed by skimming.  The natives principally prepare the oil to afford light; the leaves are used by the Kroomen as a thatch.  It is held in high estimation as an anthelmintic.  The oil is sold in Sierra Leone at 2s. a gallon, and could be procured in abundance from the coast as an article of commerce.