A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom by P. L. Simmonds

P >> P. L. Simmonds >> The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom




The following figures show the exports of arrowroot from Bermuda:--

lbs. Value of the exports.
1830 18,174 --
1831 77,153 --
1832 34,833 --
1833 44,651 --
1834 54,471 --
1835 65,500 --
1836 -- --
1841 91,230 --
1842 136,610 --
1843 151,757 L8,682
1844 173,275 10,974
1845 224,480 8,084
1847 -- 4,716
1848 -- 4,747
1849 -- 6,760
1850 854,329 --

In the spring of 1851, 201,130 lbs. were shipped from Bermuda.

In 1843 the quantity of arrowroot in the rough state made in Bermuda
was 1,110,500 lbs.

ARROWROOT EXPORTED FROM ANTIGUA TO

Great Britain B.N. America B.W. Indies
Boxes Boxes Boxes
1835 1,075 20 --
1836 581 43 --
1837 100 42 --
1838 472 20 --
1839 682 -- 32
1840 453 -- 30
1841 289 -- 10
1842 582 -- --
1843 744 -- --
1844 376 -- --
1845 402 5 --

Barbados exported in 1832, 16,814 lbs., value L469; in 1840, 387
packages; in 1843, 302; in 1844, 790 packages; in 1851, 306 packages;
these average about 30 lbs. each.

Ceylon now produces excellent arrowroot. In 1842, 150 boxes were
exported; in 1843, 200; in 1844, 300; in 1845, 600 boxes.

From Africa we now import a large quantity: 250 boxes were received in
1846. Not unfrequently arrowroot from Africa has been sent to the West
Indies in the ships with the liberated Africans, and thence
re-exported to England, as of St. Vincent or Bermuda growth. The duty
on arrowroot, under the new tariff, is equalised on all kinds to 41/2d.
per lb.

The imports and home consumption of arrowroot have increased very
largely, as may be seen from the following figures:--

Retained for home
Imports consumption
lbs. lbs.
1826 318,830 358,007
1830 449,723 516,587
1834 837,811 735,190
1835 287,966 895,406
1838 404,738 434,574
1839 303,489 224,792
1840 408,469 330,490
1841 -- 454,893
1842 890,736 846,832
1846 905,072 981,120
1847 1,185,968 1,211,168
1848 906,304 933,744
1849 1,036,185 1,032,992
1850 1,789,774 1,414,669
1851 2,083,681 1,848,778
1852 2,139,390 2,024,316

SALEP is the prepared and dried roots of several orchideous plants,
and is sometimes sold in the state of powder. Indigenous salep is
procured, according to Dr. Perceval from _Orchis mascula_, _O.
latifolia_, _O. morio_, and other native plants of this order. On the
continent it is obtained from _O. papilionaceo_, and _militaris_.
Oriental salep is procured from other orchideoe. Professor Royle states
that the salep of Kashmir is obtained from a species of Eulophia,
probably _E. virens_. Salep is also obtained from the tuberous roots
of _Tacca pinnatifida_, and other species of the same genus, which are
principally natives of the East Indies and the South Sea Islands.

The large fleshy tubers of tacca, when scraped and frequently washed,
yield a nutritious fecula resembling arrowroot.

Salep consists chiefly of bassorin, some soluble gum, and a little
starch. It forms an article of diet fitted for convalescents when
boiled with water or milk. The price of salep is about eight guineas
per cwt. in the London market. A little is exported from
Constantinople, as I noticed a shipment of 66 casks in 1842; excellent
specimens from this quarter were shown in the Egyptian department of
the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was formerly a great deal used, but
has latterly been much superseded by other articles.

Major D. Williams ("Journal of the Agri. and Hort. Soc. of India,"
vol. iv., part I), states that the tacca plant abounds in certain
parts of the province of Arracan, where the Mugs prepare the farina
for export to the China market.

After removing the peel, the root is grated on a fish-skin, and the
pulp having been strained through a coarse cloth, is washed three or
four times in water, and then dried in the sun.

According to a recent examination of the plant by Mr. Nuttall
("American Journal of Pharmacy," vol. ix., p. 305), the Otaheite salep
is obtained from a new species of tacca, which he names _T. oceanica_.

For many years we have obtained from Tahiti, and other islands of the
South Seas, this fecula, known by the name of Tahiti arrowroot,
probably the produce of _Tacca pinnatifida_. It is generally
spherical, but also often ovoid, elliptic, or rounded, with a
prolongation in the form of a neck, suddenly terminated by a plane.

The tacca plant grows at Zanzibar, and is found naturalised on the
high islands of the Pacific. The art of preparing arrowroot from it is
aboriginal with the Polynesians and Feejeeans.

At Tahiti the fecula is procured by washing the tubers, scraping off
their outer skin, and then reducing them to a pulp by friction, on a
kind of rasp, made by winding coarse twine (formed of the coco-nut
fibre) regularly round a board. The pulp is washed with sea water
through a sieve, made of the fibrous web which protects the young
frond of the coco-nut palm. The strained liquor is received in a
wooden trough, in which the fecula is deposited; and the supernatant
liquor being poured off, the sediment is formed into balls, which are
dried in the sun for twelve or twenty-four hours, then broken and
reduced to powder, which is spread out in the sun further to dry. In
some parts of the world cakes of a large size are made of the meal,
which form an article of diet in China, Cochin-Caina, Travancore, &c.,
where they are eaten by the natives with some acid to subdue their
acrimony.

Some twenty varieties of the Ti plant (_Diacaena terminalis_) are
cultivated in the Polynesian islands. There is, however, but one which
is considered farinaceous and edible. In Java the root is considered a
valuable medicine in dysentery.

Within the last three or four years, considerable quantities of a
feculent substance, called Tous les mois, have been imported from the
West Indies. It is cultivated in Barbados, St. Kitts, and the French
islands, and is said to be prepared by a tedious and troublesome
process from the rhizomes of various species of _Canna Coccinea_,
_Achiras_, _glauca_, and _edulis_. It approaches more nearly to potato
starch than to any other fecula, but its particles are larger. Like
the other amylaceous substances, it forms a valuable and nutritious
article of food for the invalid.

The large tuberous roots of the Canna are equal in size to the human
head. The plant attains in rich soils a stature of fourteen feet, and
is identical, it is supposed, with the Achira of Choco, which has an
esculent root highly esteemed; and my friend, Dr. Hamilton, of
Plymouth, has named it provisionally, in consequence, _Canna achira_.
The starch of this root, he asserts, is superior to that of the
_Maranta_.


ROOT CROPS.

Amongst tuberous rooted plants, which serve as food for man in various
quarters of the globe, the principal are the common potato, yam,
cocoes or eddoes, sweet potatoes, taro, tacca, arrowroot, cassava, or
manioc, and the Apios (_Arracacha esculenta_). There are others of
less importance, which may be incidentally mentioned. The roots of
_Tropaeolum tuberosum_ are eaten in Peru, those of _Ocymum tuberosum_
in Java. In Kamschatka they use the root of the _Lilium Pomponium_ as
a substitute for the potato. In Brazil the _Helianthus tuberosus_. The
rhizomae and seed vessels of the Lotus form the principal food of the
aborigines of Australia. As a matter of curious information, I have
also briefly alluded to many other plants and roots, furnishing
farinaceous substance and support in different countries.

The comparative amount of human food that can be produced upon an acre
from different crops, is worthy of great consideration. One hundred
bushels of Indian corn per acre is not an uncommon crop. One peck per
week will not only sustain life, but give a man strength to labor, if
the stomach is properly toned to the amount of food. This, then, would
feed one man 400 weeks, or almost eight years! 400 bushels of potatoes
can also be raised upon an acre. This would give a bushel a week for
the same length of time; and the actual weight of an acre of sweet
potatoes (_Convolvulus batatas_) is 21,344 lbs., which is not
considered an extraordinary crop. This would feed a man (six pounds a
day) for 3,557 days, or nine and two-third years!

To vary the diet we will occasionally give rice, which has been grown
at the rate of 93 bushels to the acre, over an entire field. This, at
45 lbs. to the bushel, would be 4,185 lbs.; or, at 28 lbs. to the
bushel when husked, 2,604 lbs., which, at two pounds a day, would feed
a man 1,302 days, or more than three-and-a-half years!


POTATOES.

The common English or Irish potato (_Solanum tuberosum_), so
extensively cultivated throughout most of the temperate countries of
the civilised globe, contributing as it does to the necessities of a
large portion of the human race, as well as to the nourishment and
fattening of stock, is regarded as of but little less importance in
our national economy than wheat or other grain. It has been found in
an indigenous state in Chili, on the mountains near Valparaiso and
Mendoza; also near Monte Video, Lima, Quito, as well as in Santa Fe de
Bogota, and more recently in Mexico, on the flanks of Orizaba.

The history of this plant, in connection with that of the sweet
potato, is involved in obscurity, as the accounts of their
introduction into Europe are somewhat conflicting, and often they
appear to be confounded with one another. The common kind was
doubtless introduced into Spain in the early part of the sixteenth
century, from the neighbourhood of Quito, where, as well as in all
Spanish countries, the tubers are known as papas. The first published
account of it we find on record is in "_La Cronica del Peru_," by
Pedro de Cieca, printed at Seville, in 1553, in which it is described
and illustrated by an engraving. From Spain it appears to have found
its way into Italy, where it assumed the same name as the truffle. It
was received by Clusius, at Vienna, in 1598, in whose time it spread
rapidly in the South of Europe, and even into Germany. It is said to
have found its way to England by a different route, having been
brought from Virginia by Raleigh colonists, in 1586, which would seem
improbable, as it was unknown in North America at that time, either
wild or cultivated; and besides, Gough, in his edition of Camden's
"Britannia," says it was first planted by Sir Walter Raleigh, on his
estate at Youghal, near Cork, and that it was cultivated in Ireland
before its value was known in England. Gerarde, in his "Herbal,"
published in 1597, gives a figure of this plant, under the name of
_Batata Virginiana_, to distinguish it from the _Batata edulis_, and
recommends the root to be eaten as a "delicate dish," but not as a
common food. "The sweet potato," says Sir Joseph Banks, "was used in
England as a delicacy, long before the introduction of our potatoes.
It was imported in considerable quantities from Spain and the
Canaries, and was supposed to possess the power of restoring decayed
vigor." It is related that the common potato was accidentally
introduced into England from Ireland, at a period somewhat earlier
than that noticed by Gerarde, in consequence of the wreck of a vessel
on the coast of Lancashire, which had a quantity on board. In 1663 the
Royal Society of England took measures for the cultivation of this
vegetable, with the view of preventing famine.

Notwithstanding its utility as a food became better known, no high
character was attached to it; and the writers on gardening towards the
end of the seventeenth century, a hundred years or more after its
introduction, treated of it rather indifferently. "They are much used
in Ireland and America as bread," says one author, "and may be
propagated with advantage to poor people."

The famous nurserymen, Loudon and Wise, did not consider it worthy of
notice in their "Complete Gardener," published in 1719. But its use
gradually spread as its excellencies became better understood. It was
near the middle of the last century before it was generally known
either in Britain or North America, since which it has been most
extensively cultivated.

The period of the introduction of the common potato into the British
North American colonies, is not precisely known. It is mentioned among
the products of Carolina and Virginia in 1749, and by Kalm as growing
in New York the same year.

The culture of this root extends through the whole of Europe, a large
portion of Asia, Australia, the southern and northern parts of Africa,
and the adjacent islands. On the American continent, with the
exception of some sections of the torrid zone, the culture ranges from
Labrador on the east, and Nootka Sound on the west, to Cape Horn. It
resists more effectually than the cereals the frosts of the north. In
the North American Union it is principally confined to the Northern,
Middle, and Western States, where, from the coolness of the climate it
acquires a farinaceous consistence highly conducive to the support of
animal life. It has never been extensively cultivated in Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, probably from the greater
facility of raising the sweet potato, its more tropical rival. Its
perfection, however, depends as much upon the soil as on the climate
in which it grows; for in the red loam, on the banks of Bayou Boeuf, in
Louisiana, where the land is new, it is said that tubers are produced
as large, savory, and as free from water as any raised in other parts
of the world. The same may be said of those grown at Bermuda, Madeira,
the Canaries, and numerous other ocean isles.

The chief varieties cultivated in the Northern States of America are
the carter, the kidneys, the pink-eyes, the mercer, the orange, the
Sault Ste. Marie, the merino, and Western red; in the Middle and
Western States, the mercer, the long red, or merino, the orange, and
the Western red. The yield varies from 50 to 400 bushels and upwards
per acre, but generally it is below 200 bushels.

Within the last ten years an alarming disease, or "rot," has attacked
the tubers of this plant, about the time they are fully grown. It has
not only appeared in nearly every part of America, but has spread
dismay, at times, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and has been
felt more or less seriously in every quarter of the globe.

To the greater uncertainty attending its cultivation of late years,
must be attributed the deficiency of the United States crop of 1849,
as compared with that of 1839. This is one of the four agricultural
products which, by the last census, appears smaller than ten years
since.--("American Census Reports for 1850.")

The crops in Ireland, where the potato is the principal object of
culture, vary from 11/2 to 101/2 tons per acre, according to the season;
but in the average of three years ending 1849, the annual growth of
Great Britain and Ireland amounted to nine million tons, which, at L3
per ton, exhibits the value at L27,000,000 sterling. Ireland produced
in 1847 a little over two million tons, the yield being 71/4 tons per
acre. In 1848 the produce was 2,880,814 tons, averaging only four tons
to the acre. In 1849, 4,014,122 tons, averaging 51/2 tons to the acre.
In 1850, 3,954,990 tons; and in 1851, 4,441,022 tons; the average
yield per acre not stated. In many parts of Scotland 24 tons to the
acre are raised. The sales of potatoes in the principal metropolitan
markets exceed 140,000 tons a year, which are irrespective of the
sales which take place at railway stations, wharfs, shops, &c. The
imports into the United Kingdom average about 70,000 tons annually.
Potatoes are exported to the West Indies, Mediterranean, and other
quarters. For emigrant ships, preserved or dried potato flour is now
much used.

The following quantities of potato flour were imported from France in
the last few years:--

Cwts.
1848 17,222
1849 3,858
1850 12,591
1851 2,631

We also imported the following quantities of potatoes in the last
five years:--

Cwts.
1848 940,697
1849 1,417,867
1850 1,348,867
1851 636,771
1852 773,658

Thoroughly dried potatoes will always produce a crop free from
disease. Such is the positive assertion of Mr. Bollman, one of the
professors in the Russian Agricultural Institution, at Gorigoretsky.
In a very interesting pamphlet[47] by this gentleman, it is asserted,
as an unquestionable fact, that mere drying, if conducted at a
sufficiently high temperature, and continued long enough, is a
complete antidote to the disease.

The account given by Professor Bollman of the accident which led to
this discovery is as follows:--He had contrived a potato-setter, which
had the bad quality of destroying any sprouts that might be "on the
sets, and even of tearing away the rind. To harden the potatoes so as
to protect them against this accident, he resolved to dry them. In the
spring of 1850, he placed a lot in a very hot room, and at the end of
three weeks they were dry enough to plant. The potatoes came up well,
and produced as good a crop as that of the neighbouring farmers, with
this difference only, that they had no disease, and the crop was,
therefore, upon the whole, more abundant. Professor Bollman tells us
that he regarded this as a mere accident; he, however, again dried his
seed potatoes in 1851, and again his crop was abundant and free from
disease, while everywhere on the surrounding land they were much
affected. This was too remarkable a circumstance not to excite
attention, and in 1852 a third trial took place. All Mr. Bollman's own
stock of potatoes being exhausted, he was obliged to purchase his
seed, which bore unmistakable marks of having formed part of a crop
that had been severely diseased; some, in fact, were quite rotten.
After keeping them about a month in a hot room, as before, he cut the
largest potatoes into quarters, and the smaller into halves, and left
them to dry for another week. Accidentally the drying was carried so
far that apprehensions were entertained of a very bad crop, if any.
Contrary to expectation, however, the sets pushed promptly, and grew
so fast that excellent young potatoes were dug three weeks earlier
than usual. Eventually nine times the quantity planted was produced,
and although the neighbouring fields were attacked, no trace of
disease could be found on either the herbage or the potatoes
themselves.

This singular result, obtained in three successive years, led to
inquiry as to whether any similar cases were on record. In the course
of the investigation two other facts were elicited. It was discovered
that Mr. Losovsky (living in the government of Witebsk, in the
district of Sebege), had for four years adopted the plan of drying his
seed potatoes, and that during that time there had been no disease on
his estate. It was again an accident which led to the practice of this
gentleman. Five years ago, while his potatoes were digging, he put one
in his pocket, and on returning home threw it on the stove (poele),
where it remained forgotten till the spring. Having then chanced to
observe it, he had the curiosity to plant it, all dried up as it was,
and obtained an abundant, healthy crop; since that time the practice
of drying has been continued, and always with great success. Professor
Bollman remarks that it is usual in Russia, in many places, to
smoke-dry flax, wheat, and rye; and in the west of Russia, experienced
proprietors prefer, for seed, onions that have been kept over the
winter in cottages without a chimney. Such onions are called _dymka_,
which may be interpreted smoke-dried.

The second fact is this:--Mr. Wasileffsky, a gentlemen residing in the
government of Mohileff, is in the habit of keeping potatoes all the
year round, by storing them in the place where his hams are smoked. It
happened that in the spring of 1852 his seed potatoes, kept in the
usual manner, were insufficient, and he made up the requisite quantity
with some of those which had been for a month in the smoking place.
These potatoes produced a capital crop, very little diseased, while at
the same time the crop from the sets which were not smoke-dried was
extensively attacked by disease. Professor Bollman is of opinion that
there would have been no disease at all if the sets had been better
dried.

The temperature required to produce the desired result is not very
clearly made out. Mr. Bollman's room, in which his first potatoes were
dried, was heated to about 72 degrees, and much higher. By way of
experiment he placed others in the chamber of the stove itself, where
the thermometer stood at 136 degrees, and more. He also ascertained
that the vitality of the potato is not affected, even if the rind is
charred. Those who have the use of a malt-kiln, or even a lime-kiln,
might try the effect of excessive drying, for a month seems to be long
enough for the process.--(Gardener's Chronicle.)

A Mr. Penoyer, of Western Saratoga, Illinois, publishes the following,
which he recommends as a perfect cure and preventive of the potato
rot, having tested it thoroughly four years with perfect success;
while others in the same field, who did not use the preventive, lost
their entire crop by the rot. It not only prevents the rot, but
restores the potato to its primitive vigor, and the product is not
only sound, but double the size, consequently producing twice the
quantity on the same ground, and the vines grow much larger, and
retain their freshness and vitality until the frost kills them. Aside
from the cure of the rot, the farmers would be more than doubly
compensated for their trouble and expense in the increase and quality
of the crop. The remedy or preventive is as follows:--"Take one peck
of fine salt and mix it thoroughly with half a bushel of Nova Scotia
plaster or gypsum (the plaster is the best), and immediately after
hoeing the potatoes the second time, or just as the young potato
begins to set, sprinkle on the main vines, next to the ground, a
tablespoon full of the above mixture to each hill, and be sure to get
it on the main vines, as it is found that the rot proceeds from a
sting of an insect in the vine, and the mixture coming in contact with
the vine, kills the effect of it before it reaches the potato." I
cannot but consider Professor Bollman's as the most important of the
two remedies suggested.

The potato crop of the United States exceeds 100 million bushels,
nearly all of which are consumed in the country; the average exports
of the last eight years not having exceeded 160,000 bushels per annum.

According to the census returns of 1840, the quantity of potatoes of
all sorts raised in the Union, was 108,298,060 bushels; of 1850,
104,055,989 bushels, of which 38,259,196 bushels were sweet potatoes.

Last year (1852) there was under cultivation with potatoes in Canada,
the following extent of land:--

Acres. Bushels.
Upper Canada 77,672 Produce 498,747
Lower Canada 73,244 Produce 456,111

About 782,008 cwts. of potatoes are annually exported from the Canary
Islands. In Prussia, 153 million hectolitres of potatoes were raised
in 1849. In 1840 Van Diemen's Land produced 15,000 tons of potatoes,
on about 5,000 acres of land.

The potato is not yet an article of so much importance in France, as
in England or the Low Countries, but within the last twenty years its
cultivation has increased very rapidly. It is mostly grown where corn
is the least cultivated. The quantity raised in 1818, was 29,231,867
hectolitres, which had increased in 1835 to 71,982,814 hectolitres.
About 2,000,000 hectolitres of chesnuts are also annually consumed in
France, a portion of the rural population in some of the Central and
Southern Departments living almost entirely on them for half the year.

In Peru dried potatoes are thus prepared:--Small potatoes are boiled,
peeled, and then dried in the sun, but the best are those dried by the
severe frosts on the mountains. In the Cordilleras they are covered
with ice, until they assume a horny appearance. Powdered, it is called
_chimo_. They will keep for any length of time, and when used required
to be bruised and soaked. If introduced as a vegetable substance in
long sea voyages, the potato thus dried would be found wholesome and
nourishing. A large and profitable business is now carried on, in what
is called "preserved potatoes," for ships' use, prepared by Messrs.
Edwards and Co., which are found exceedingly useful in the Royal Navy,
in emigrant ships, for troops and other services, from their
portability, nutritious properties, and being uninjured by climate.

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Zachary Taylor Sweeney - "The Spirit and the Word"

Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald - "Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil,"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841"

The green room: Carol Ann Duffy, poet
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Audio slideshow: Robert Shaw discusses his production of Sylvia Plath's only play
What is your biggest guilty green secret?

Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
Three Women was first heard as a radio drama and then published as a poem. Robert Shaw explains his desire to stage the piece as it was intended