Castor oil seed is thrown into the mill like other seeds, as already described; when removed it requires to be boiled for an hour, and then strained through a cloth to free it from the fragments of the seed.

It is a curious fact, and illustrative of the imperfect manner in which the oil is separated from the seeds, that while the common pressman only obtained some 261/4 per cent., Boussingault, in his laboratory, from the same seeds, actually procured 41 per cent.  When the oil cakes are meant for feeding stock, this loss is of little consequence, inasmuch as the oil serves a very good purpose, but when the cake is only intended to be used as a manure, it is a great loss, inasmuch as the oil is of little or no use in adding any food for crops to the soil.

The chief oil made on the sea board of India, is that yielded by the coco-nut palm.  The nut having been stripped of the husk or coir, the shell is broken, and the fatty lining enclosing the milk is taken out.  This is called cobri, copra, or copperah in different localities.  Three maunds, or ninety pounds of copperah, are thrown into the mill with about three gallons of water, and from this is produced three maunds, or seven and three-quarter gallons of oil.  The copperah in its unprepared state is sold, slightly dried in the market.  It is burned in iron cribs or grates, on the top of poles as torches, in processions, and as means of illumination for work performed in the open air at night.  No press or other contrivance is made use of by the natives in India for squeezing out or expressing the oil from the cake, and a large amount of waste, in consequence of this, necessarily ensues.—­Bombay Times, June 5, 1850.

Oil, of the finest kind, is made in India by expression from the kernels of the apricot.  It is clear, of a pale yellow color, and smells strongly of hydrocyanic acid, of which it contains, usually, about 4 per cent.

“On inquiring into the use made of the sunflower, we were given to understand that it is here (in Tartary) raised chiefly for the oil expressed from it.  But it is also of use for many other purposes.  In the market places of the larger towns we often found the people eating the seeds, which, when boiled in water, taste not unlike the boiled Indian corn eaten by the Turks.  In some districts of Russia the seeds are employed with great success in fattening poultry; they are also said to increase the number of eggs more than any other kind of grain.  Pheasants and partridges eat them with great avidity, and find the same effects from them as other birds.  The dried leaves are given to cattle in place of straw; and the withered stalks are said to produce a considerable quantity of alkali.”—­Bremner’s Interior of Russia.

658 barrels linseed oil were brought down to New Orleans from the interior in 1849, and 1009 in 1848.