S.

Few cultivators are probably aware of the great importance of oil to
this country, and the number of purposes for which it is employed in
the arts and manufactures. It is extensively used for candle and soap
making, for burning in lamps, for diminishing friction in machinery of
all kinds, and especially for locomotives--in wool-dressing, in the
manufacture of paints and varnishes, as an article of food, for
medicinal purposes, &c.

So important are vegetable oils deemed, that the Society of Arts, in
its prize list for 1851, offered gold medals for the importation or
introduction into this country of any new plants or trees from China,
India, or elsewhere, producing oils or fatty substances, such as can
be used as food, or are applicable to manufacturing purposes; and also
to the person who shall manufacture and import the finest specimen of
oil, not less than ten gallons, the produce of olives grown in any
British colony in Africa or Australasia.

The time of burning of equal quantities of the following oils has been
found to be--

Hours.
Oil of poppy 14
" sunflower 13
" rape 11
" mustard 111/2
" flax seed 10
" gold of pleasure
(_Camelina sativa_) 91/2
" olives 9
" hemp seed 8
" tallow 101/2

FOREIGN VEGETABLE OILS IMPORTED.

1821. 1845. 1850.
tuns. tuns. tuns.
Coco-nut oil -- 2,148 98,040
Olive oil 1,900 12,315 20,783
Palm oil 3,200 25,285 448,589 cwts.
Rape seed oil 800 3,973 --
Linseed oil 10,500 38,634 --
------ ------ -------
16,400 82,355
Fish oils 32,356 22,626 21,328

The total quantity of all kinds of wool annually consumed in England
and Wales, in 1843, was estimated at 801,566 packs. Now, five gallons
of olive, rapeseed or other oils, being used in the preparation of
every pack of wool, for cloth (independent of the quantity used in
soap, applicable to the woollen manufactures), it follows t