| Imported. gallons. | Retained for home consumption. gallons. | |
| 1827 | 1,028,174 | 1,070,765 |
| 1831 | 4,158,917 | 1,928,892 |
| 1835 | 606,166 | 554,196 |
| 1839 | 1,793,920 | 1,806,178 |
| 1843 | 3,047,688 | 2,516,724 |
| 1847 | 2,190,384 | — |
| 1848 | 2,541,672 | — |
| 1849 | 4,274,928 | — |
| 1850 | 5,860,806 | — |
| 1851 | 2,898,756 | 2,749,572 |
| 1852 | 2,242,296 | 1,066,400 |
The imports of olive oil into the port of Liverpool were 9,815 tuns in 1849, and 10,038 tuns in 1850. It was brought from Manila, Malaga, and Corfu, but chiefly from Barbary, Palermo, Gallipoli, and the Levant. In 1850 we imported from France 259,646 imperial gallons of olive oil, officially valued at £34,638; the average in ordinary years is only about 20,000 gallons from the continent.
ALMOND OIL.—To the south of the Empire of Morocco there are forests of the Arzo tree, which is thorny, irregular in its form, and produces a species of almond exceedingly hard. Its fruit consists of two almonds, rough and bitter, from which an oil is produced, very excellent for frying. In order to use this oil it requires to be purified by fire, and set in a flame, which must be suffered to die away of itself; the most greasy particles are thus consumed, and its arid qualities wholly destroyed. "When the Moors gather these fruits they drive their goats under the trees, and as the fruit falls the animals carefully nibble off the skins, and then greedily feed.
The oil of almonds is more fluid than olive oil, and of a clear, transparent, yellowish color, with a very slight odor and taste. It is occasionally employed for making the finer kinds of soap, and also in medicine.
In manufacturing it the fruit are first well rubbed or shaken in a coarse bag or sack, to separate a bitter powder which covers their epidermis. They are then pounded to a paste in mortars of marble, which paste is afterwards subjected to the action of a press, as in the case of the olive.
About 80 tuns of almond oil are annually imported into this country, the price being about 1s. per pound. Five-and-a-half pounds of almond oil will yield by cold expression one pound six ounces of oil, and three-fourths of a pound more if the iron plates are heated.
SESAME OR TEEL.—Of this small annual plant there are two or three species. Sesamum orientale, the common sort; and S. indicum, a more robust kind, cultivated at a different season, are both natives of the East Indies. S. indicum bears a pale purple flower, and S. orientals has a white blossom. It is the latter which is chiefly grown, and the seeds afford the Gingellie oil or suffed-til, already extensively known in commerce in the East. The expressed oil is as clear and sweet as that from almonds, and probably the Behens oil, used in varnish, is no other. It is called by the Arabs "Siriteh," and the seed, "bennie " seed, in Africa. S. orientals is grown in the West Indies under the name of "wangle." It is said to have been first brought to Jamaica by the Jews as an article of food. 1,050 bags of gingelly teel, or sesame seed, were imported into Liverpool, in 1849, from the East, South America, and Africa, for expressing oil, and 3,700 bags in 1850. There are two kinds of seed, light and dark, and it is about the same size as mustard seed, only not round.
A hectare of land in Algeria yields 1,475 kilogrammes of seed, which estimated at 50 cents the kilogramme, amounts to 737 francs, whilst the cost of production is only 259 francs, leaving a profit of 478 francs (nearly £20). The oil obtained from this seed is inferior to good olive oil, but is better adapted for the manufacture of soap.
This plant is not unlike hemp, but the stalk is cleaner and semi-transparent. The flower also is so gaudy, that a field in blossom looks like a bed of florist's flowers, and its aromatic fragrance does not aid to dispel such delusion. It flourishes most upon land which is light and fertile. The fragrance of the oil is perceptibly weaker when obtained from seed produced on wet, tenacious soils. A gallon of seed seems to be the usual quantity sown upon an acre. In Bengal, S. orientale is sown during February, and the crop harvested at the end of May; but S. indicum is sown on high, dry soil, in the early part of the rains of June, and the harvest occurs in September. About Poonah it is sown in June and harvested in November. In Nepaul two crops are obtained annually; one is sown as a first crop in April and May, and reaped in October and November; the other as an autumn crop, after the upland rise in August and September, and reaped in November and December.
In Mysore, after being cut it is stacked for a week, then exposed to the sun for three days, but gathered into heaps at night; and between every two days of such drying, it is kept a day in the heap. By this process, the pods burst and shed their seeds without thrashing.