Oil of Pumpkin Seed.

C. S. Kapinesque, Esq. to Doct. Samuel Mitchell.

New York, 20th Feb. 1819.

While I was at Harmony, on the banks of the Wabash, in the state of Indiana, last summer, I was told by the industrious German Society of the Harmonites, that instead of throwing away or giving to the pigs the seeds of their pumpkins, as is usually done all over the country, they collected them and made an oil from them which they use for all the purposes of lamp oil and olive oil. It is well known, that all the different species and varieties of pumpkins (genus cuburbita Linnæus) afford an oil which has valuable medical properties, possessing in the highest degree the refrigerative quality; but I had never heard before of its being made on a large scale, and for economical uses.

It will be sufficient to mention this fact to some of our enlightened farmers, to induce them to imitate the worthy Harmonites, and I recommend highly the practice, as likely to become eminently beneficial. The pumpkin seeds afford their oil with the greatest facility and abundance. One gallon of seeds will give about half a gallon of oil. They may be pressed like rape and flax seed.—Their oil is clear, limpid pale, scentless, and when used for salad instead of sweet oil, has merely a faint insipid taste; it burns well, and without smoke. Those advantages entitle it to our attention, as an indigenous production of first necessity. Pumpkins grow all over the United States, from Maine to Louisiana, and with such luxuriance, as to produce sometimes as much as 50,000lbs. weight of fruits, and about 2000 lbs. weight of seeds, in one acre of Indian corn without injuring the crop of corn. Those 2000 lbs. of seeds might produce about 200 gallons of oil, worth about 200 dollars. I calculate that about two millions of gallons of such oil could be made annually in the United States, from the seeds that are wasted or given to cattle and pigs. This is worth saving—and in addition to the bread, pies, soups, dishes, feed, &c. afforded by pumpkins, we shall have a good and wholesome home-made vegetable oil for lamps and food.