Rape-seed

IMG:p488_1.png:Chinese characters t,'ai tzu. In Central and VV. China a number of plants are grown for their oil, and according to Wilson fully 75% of the oil commonly used is the product of two memjoers of the cabbage family, Bra ica juncea, var. oleifera, and B. campestris, var. oleifera. The latter is Ta-yu-ts'ai IMG:p488_2.png:Chinese characters the former Hsiao-yu-ts'ai IMG:p488_3.png:Chinese characters i.e. great and small oil vegetable. Both kinds are loosely designated rape, but this was never met with by Wilson. Throughout the entire Yangtze valley, during the winter months, enormous areas are given over to the cultivation of these two plants. Though the latter is the earlier of the two, the other is the more widely grown. These plants are in flower in March and thereabouts and the crop is harvested in April, the seeds being crushed and steamed and the oil obtained by expre ion. In the far interior the use of the oil as an illuminant equals its culinai-y value, and it also enters into the composition of Chinese candles, but aisi the use of foreign kerosene oil is so greatly increasing in China, more "rape-seed" oil is freed for exportation abroad. Thus 856,000 piculs were exported in 1912 and 1,110,000 piculs, worth Tls. 3,218,000 in 1915. The crop is very useful to the people; it ripens before the planting of rice and cotton; its i young shoots and leaves are nutritious as food, fresh or salted, the woody stems make good fuel and the refuse cake is a good manure. The yield of seed ranges between 13 and 16 bushels per acre or about 640 lbs., of average worth $6.19, and 8,000 lbs. of stems worth as fuel $5.16. The yield i of oil is 32%. All vegetables are fried in rape oil. Its principal use in modern industry i.& as a lubricant; its high viscosity, which can be increased by blowing hot air through it, renders it peculiarly suitable for this purpose. It is) also used for soft soap manufacture; for greasing the ends of loaves before baking; and in steel-plate manufacture, the heated plates being dipped in it to harden them. The value in London at the end of 1915 was £34 to £36 per ton. Oil is also expre ed from the seeds of other members of the cabbage family, notably the kales. The exports for 1916 were Rape-seed, pels. 623,984, value Hk.Tls. 2,007,595; Rape-seed Oil, pels. 32,584, Tls. 270,510. Imperial Institute Bulletin, vol. xii, No. 3; Wilson: A Naturalist in West China; King: Farmers of Forty Centuries.