SUN-FLOWER SEED.
To some extent this is likely to become a profitable crop. Medium lands will yield, on an average, fifty bushels; while first-rate lands will yield from seventy to a hundred bushels.
Mode of Cultivation.—The ground is prepared in all respects as for a corn crop, and the seed sown in drills four feet apart—one plant to every eighteen inches in the drill. It is to be plowed and tended in all respects like a crop of corn.
Harvesting.—As the heads ripen, they are gathered, laid on a barn floor and threshed with a flail. The seed shells very easily.
Use.—The seed may be employed in fattening hogs, feeding poultry, etc., and for this last purpose it is better than grain. But the seed is more valuable at the oil-mill than elsewhere. It will yield a gallon to the bushel without trouble; and by careful working, more than this. Hemp yields one and a fourth gallons to the bushel, and flax-seed one and a half by ordinary pressure; but two gallons under the hydraulic press.
The oil has, as yet, no established market price. It will range from seventy cents to a dollar, according as its value shall be established as an article for lamps and for painters’ use. But at seventy cents a gallon for oil, the seed would command fifty-five cents a bushel, which is a much higher price than can be had for corn.
It is stated, but upon how sufficient proof we know not, that sun-flower oil is excellent for burning in lamps. It has also been tried by our painters to some extent; and for inside work, it is said to be as good as linseed oil. Mr. Hannaman, who has kindly put us in possession of these facts, says, that the oil resembles an animal, rather than a vegetable oil; that it has not the varnish properties of the linseed oil. We suppose by varnish is meant,
the albumen and mucilage which are found in vegetable oils. The following analysis of hemp-seed, and flax-seed, or as it is called in England lint or linseed, will show the proportions of various ingredients in one hundred parts.
| Hemp-seed. (Bucholz.) | Linseed. (Leo Meier.) | |
| Oil, | 19.1 | 11.3 |
| Husk, etc. | 38.3 | 44.4 |
| Woody fibre and starch, | 5.0 | 1.5 |
| Sugar, etc. | 1.6 | 10.8 |
| Gum, | 9.0 | 7.1 |
| Soluble albumen (Casein?) | 24.7 | 15.1 |
| Insoluble do | — | 3.7 |
| Wax and resin, | 1.6 | 3.1 |
| Loss, | 0.7 | 3.0 |
| 100 | 100 |
The existence of impurities in oil, such as mucilage, albumen, gum, etc., which increase its value to the painter, diminishes its value for the lamp, since these substances crust or cloy the wick, and prevent a clear flame. All oils may, therefore, the less excellent they are for painting, be regarded as the more valuable for burning. Rape-seed is extensively raised in Europe, chiefly in Flanders, for its oil, and is much used for burning. Ten quarts may be extracted from a bushel of seed. We append a table representing the richness of various seeds, etc., in oil.