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

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90

Now it is admitted, on all sides, that there is but one species of
culinary nutmeg, the _Myristica Moschata_ of botanists, although at
least a score of the same genus, all unfit for human food. The
parent country of the aromatic nutmegs extends from the Molucca
Islands to New Guinea, inclusive. In this they grow with facility
and even in the Banda Islands, where there are parks of them, they
hardly undergo any cultivation, and may truly be said, even there,
to be a wild product. It is only when grown as exotics, as in the
British settlements of Pinang and Singapore, that they require
cultivation, and that a more careful and expensive one than any
other produce of the soil.

Aromatic nutmegs are sometimes large and sometimes small--sometimes
round, sometimes oblong, and sometimes long, and this will be found
the case whether cultivated or uncultivated. How, then, the Customs
are able to distinguish them it is difficult to understand. In the
ordinary Prices Current no mention whatever is made of the wild and
cultivated, the lowest quality being quoted in the most recent at
2s. per pound, and the highest at 3s. 10d.,--the best of what are
called wild fetching a higher price than the lower qualities of what
are called cultivated.

But suppose the distinction could be made with the most perfect
certainty, to make it would be a palpable departure from the
principle adopted with every other commodity, of charging a
uniform rate of duty on quality. To give an example, the present
price of black pepper is 3-5/8d. to 4d. per pound, while that of
white pepper is 81/2d. to 1s. 2d. per pound, both paying the same
duty of 6d.; yet nothing can be more easily distinguished than
these two commodities, which, except as to curing, are the same
article.

Tea is a still more striking example. The duty is the same on all
qualities, though prices range from 1l1/2d. to 3s. 6d. per pound. It
was the very circumstance of the difficulty of distinguishing
between the different kinds of tea, especially between Bohea and
Congou, which, after an eighteen months trial, overthrew the system
of rated duties of 1s. 6d., 2s., and 3s., adopted on the abolition
of the East India Company's monopoly in 1833.

Unless the duty on nutmegs is equalised there will be no end of
trouble and disputes, and however expert the Customs may be, they
will certainly be outwitted, and long-shaped and small nutmegs,
although really cultivated, will be introduced at the lower duty, by
unscrupulous traders, as wild ones.

It may be added that duties of 12d. and 5d. do not, even if a
departure from the principle of charging on quality were
justifiable, represent the just proportional rates which ought to be
levied upon what are supposed to be, respectively, cultivated and
wild, as they are represented in the ordinary Price Current by the
highest and lowest prices, which are 3s. 10d. and 2s. The just
proportional duty ought to be on the lowest, not 5d., but 7d. The
duty, as first proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of 1s.
per pound on nutmegs, without distinction, was perfectly
satisfactory to the planters, merchants, and the trade in general.

It is a mistake to suppose that a duty of 1s. would exclude the
so-called wild nutmegs. They would be imported in large quantities,
as the cost is low. In quantity it was 17 Spanish dollars per picul,
and there is no reason to suppose it would be more now. The finest
picked cost say 34 Spanish dollars.

In Pinang and Singapore for cultivated the price is 65 to 70
dollars.

The planters for the most part do not sell on the spot, but consign
here for sale on their own account.

London, May 23rd, 1853.

NUTMEGS IMPORTED AND EXPORTED TO AND FROM SINGAPORE.

Value of the
Imported. Exported. Growth of native growth.
piculs. piculs. Singapore. L
1841 2271/2 412 1841/2 3,323
1842 258 809 551 9,897
1843 1501/2 249 981/2 1,760
1844 52 282 230 4,131
1845 41 383 342 6,143
1846 79 331 252 4,526
1847 139 416 277 4,275

NUTMEGS EXPORTED FROM JAVA.

Nutmegs. Mace.
piculs. piculs.
1830 1,304 177
1835 5,022 1,606
1839 5,027 1,581
1843 2,133 486

IMPORTS INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM.
NUTMEGS, WILD AND CULTIVATED. | MACE.
Imports. Home consump. | Imports. Consumption.
lbs. lbs. | lbs. lbs.
1847 367,936 150,657 | 1847 60,265 18,821
1848 336,420 167,143 | 1848 47,572 19,712
1849 224,021 178,417 | 1849 45,978 20,605
1850 315,126 167,683 | 1850 77,337 21,997
1851 358,320 194,132 | 1851 77,863 21,695
1852 357,940 239,113 | 1852 61,697 21,480

MACE EXPORTED--ACTUAL GROWTH OF SINGAPORE.
Quantity--piculs. Value--L
1841 251/2 583
1842 72 1,616
1843 403/4 943
1844 161/2 359
1845 71 1,616
1846 8 179
1847 75 1,661

109 piculs of imported mace were also re-shipped in 1847.

40,000 lbs. of mace were imported into the United Kingdom from India
in 1848.

GINGER, GALANGALE, AND CARDAMOMS.

The rhizome of _Zingiber officinale_ (_Amomum Zingiber_), constitutes
the ginger of commerce, which is imported chiefly from the East and
West Indies. It is also grown in China. In the young state the
rhizomes are fleshy and slightly aromatic, and they are then used as
preserves, or prepared in syrup; in a more advanced stage the aroma is
fully developed, their texture is more woody, and they become fit for
ordinary ginger. The inferior sorts, when dried after immersion in hot
water, form black ginger. The best roots are scraped, washed, and
simply dried in the sun with care, and then they receive the name of
white ginger. The rhizome contains an acid resin and volatile oil,
starch and gum. It is used medicinally as a tonic and carminative, in
the form of powder, syrup, and tincture.

The root stocks of _Alpinia racemosa_, _A. Galanga_, and many other
plants of the order, have the same aromatic and pungent properties as
ginger.

The consumption of ginger is about 13,000 or 14,000 cwt. a year. Of
16,004 cwt. imported in 1840, 5,381 came from the British West Indies,
9,727 from the East India Company's possessions and Ceylon, and 896
cwt. from Western Africa.

The difference between the black and white ginger of the shops is
ascribed by Dr. P. Browne and others to different methods of curing
the rhizomes; but this is scarcely sufficient to account for them, and
I cannot help suspecting the existence of some difference in the
plants themselves. That this really exists is proved by the
statements of Rumphius ("Herb. Amb.," lib. 8, cap. xix., p. 156), that
there are two varieties of the plant, the white and the red. Moreover
Dr. Wright ("Lond. Med. Journal," vol. viii.) says that two sorts are
cultivated in Jamaica, viz., the white and the black; and, he adds,
"black ginger has the most numerous and largest roots."

The rhizome, called in commerce ginger root, occurs in
flattish-branched or lobed palmate pieces, called _races_, which do
not exceed four inches in length. Several varieties, distinguished by
their color and place of growth, are met with. The finest is that
brought from Jamaica. A great part of that found in the shops has been
washed in whiting and water, under the pretence of preserving it from
insects.

The dark colored kinds are frequently bleached with chloride of lime.
Barbados ginger is in shorter flatter races, of a darker color, and
covered with a corrugated epidermis. African ginger is in smallish
races, which have been partially scraped, and are pale colored. East
India ginger is unscraped; its races are dark ash colored externally,
and are larger than those of the African ginger. Tellichery ginger is
in large plump races, with a remarkable reddish tint externally.

Jamaica black ginger is not frequently found in the shops. The Malabar
dark ginger is in unscraped short pieces, which have a horny
appearance internally, and are of a dirty brown color both internally
and externally.

Ginger is imported in bags weighing about a hundred-weight.

The Malabar ginger exported from Calicut is the produce of the
district of Shernaad, situated in the south of Calicut; a place
chiefly inhabited by Moplas, who look upon the ginger cultivation as a
most valuable and profitable trade, which in fact it is. The soil of
Shernaad is so very luxuriant, and so well suited for the cultivation
of ginger, that it is reckoned the best, and in fact the only place in
Malabar where ginger grows and thrives to perfection. Gravelly grounds
are considered unfit; the same may be said of swampy ones, and whilst
the former check the growth of the ginger, the latter tend in a great
measure to rot the root; thus the only suitable kind of soil is that
which, being red earth, is yet free from gravel, and the sod good and
heavy. The cultivation generally commences about the middle of May,
after the ground has undergone a thorough process of ploughing,
harrowing, &c.

At the commencement of the monsoons, beds of ten or twelve feet long
by three or four feet wide are formed, and in these beds small holes
are dug at three-fourths to one foot apart, which are filled with
manure. The roots, hitherto carefully buried under sheds, are dug out,
the good ones picked from those which are affected by the moisture, or
any other concomitant of a half-year's exclusion from the atmosphere,
and the process of clipping them into suitable sizes for planting
performed by cutting the ginger into pieces of an inch and a half to
two inches long. These are then buried in the holes, which have been
previously manured, and the whole of the beds are then covered with a
good thick layer of green leaves, which, whilst they serve as manure,
also contribute to keep the beds from unnecessary dampness, which
might otherwise be occasioned by the heavy falls of rain during the
months of June and July. Rain is essentially requisite for the growth
of the ginger; it is also however necessary, that the beds be
constantly kept from inundation, which, if not carefully attended to,
the crop is entirely ruined; great precaution is therefore taken in
forming drains between the beds, and letting water out, thus
preventing a superfluity. On account of the great tendency some kinds
of leaves have to breed worms and insects, strict care is observed in
the choosing of them, and none but the particular kinds used in
manuring ginger are taken in, lest the wrong ones might fetch in
worms, which, if once in the beds, no remedy can be resorted to
successfully to destroy them; thus they in a very short time ruin the
crop. Worms bred from the leaves laid on the soil, though highly
destructive, are not so pernicious to ginger cultivation as those
which proceed from the effect of the soil. The former kind, whilst
they destroy the beds in which they once appear, do not spread
themselves to the other beds, be they ever so close, but the latter
kind must of _course_ be found in almost all the beds, as they do not
proceed from accidental causes, but from the nature of the soil. In
cases like these, the whole crop is oftentimes ruined, and the
cultivators are thereby subjected to heavy losses.

Ginger is extensively diffused throughout the Indian isles, it being
especially indigenous to the East, and of pretty general use among the
natives, who neglect the finer spices. The great and smaller varieties
are cultivated, and the sub-varieties distinguished by their brown or
white colors. There is no production which has a greater diversity of
names. This diversity proves, as usual, the wide diffusion of the
plant in its wild state. The ginger of the Indian Archipelago is
however inferior in quality to that of Malabar or Bengal. In the
cultivation of ginger great improvement may be adopted and expense
saved. The garden plough and small harrow should be used.

The present mode of preparing the land for this crop in the West
Indies, is by first carefully hoeing off all bush and weeds from the
piece you intend to plant; the workmen are then placed in a line, and
dig forward the land to the full depth of the hoe, cutting the furrow
not more than from five to six inches thick. The land is then allowed
to pulverise for a short time; you then prepare it for receiving the
plants by opening drills with the hoe, from ten to twelve inches
apart, and the same in depth, chopping or breaking up any clods that
may be in the land. Two or three women follow and drop the plants in
the drills, say from nine to ten inches apart. The plants or sets are
the small knots or fingers broken off the original root, as not worth
the scraping. The plants are then covered in with a portion of the
earth-bank formed in drilling. It requires great care and attention in
keeping them clean from weeds until they attain sufficient age. It
throws out a pedicle or foot stalk in the course of the second or
third week, the leaves of which are of similar shape to that of the
Guinea grass.

Ginger is a delicate plant, and very liable to rot, particularly if
planted in too rich a soil, or where it may be subject to heavy rains.
The general average of yield is from 1,500 to 2,000 lbs. per acre in
plants, although I have known as much as 3,000 lbs. of ginger cured
from an acre of land. The planting season generally commences in
Jamaica in February and March, and the crop is got in in December and
January, when the stalks begin to wither. The ginger is taken from the
ground by means of the hoe, each laborer filling a good-sized basket,
at the same time breaking off the small knots or knobs for future
planting.

A good scraper of ginger will give you from 30 to 40 lbs. of ginger
per day. It is then laid on barbacues (generally made of boards) to
dry. It takes from six to ten days to be properly cured. The average
yield in weight is about one-third of what is scraped. When intended
for preserving, the roots must be taken up at the end of three or four
months, while the fibres are tender and full of sap.

The ginger grown in the West Indies is considered superior in quality
to that of the East, doubtless because more care is paid to the
culture and drying of the root, but it is of less importance to
commerce. The quantities imported from these two quarters is however
becoming more equal, and Africa is coming into the field as a
producer, 1,545 casks and packages having arrived from the western
coast in 1846. The annual average export of ginger from Barbados
between the years 1740 and 1788, was 4,667 bags; between 1784 and
1786, 6,320 bags; in 1788, 5,562 cwt. were shipped; in 1792, 3,046
bags and barrels. In 1738, so widely was the culture of this root
diffused in Jamaica, that 20,933 bags, of one cwt. each, and 8,864
lbs. in casks were shipped. The exports may now be taken on an average
at 4,000 cwt.; but, like all the other staple products of the island,
this has fallen off one-half since the emancipation of the negro
population.

In the three years which preceded the abolition of slavery, 5,719,000
lbs. of ginger were shipped from Jamaica. In the three years ending
with 1848, the quantity shipped had decreased 2,612,186 lbs., as will
be seen by the following returns:--

GINGER SHIPPED.
lbs. lbs.
1830 1,748,800 | 1846 1,462,000
1831 1,614,640 | 1847 1,324,480
1832 2,355,560 | 1848 320,340
--------- | ---------
5,719,000 | 3,106,820

In 1843 there were shipped from Jamaica 3,719 casks and bags; in 1844,
3,692 casks and 1730 bags; in 1845, 3,506 casks, valued at L4 10s.
each, and 1,129 bags, valued at L2 each, equal in all to L18,037.
From the island of Hayti 8,769 lbs. of ginger were exported in 1835,
and 15,509 lbs. in 1836. 39 packages of ginger were shipped from
Barbados in 1851.

In Maranham and one or two other provinces of Brazil, ginger of an
excellent quality is grown, and a good deal is exported. It was very
early an article of culture in South America. According to Acosta, it
was brought to America by one Francisco de Mendoza, from Malabar, and
so rapidly did its cultivation spread, that as far back as 1547,
22,053 cwt. were shipped to Europe. Southey, in his "History of
Brazil" (vol. i., p. 320), says, "Ginger had been brought from the
island of St. Thomas, and throve so well that in the year 1573, 4,000
arrobas of 25 lbs. each were cured; it was better than what came from
India, though the art of drying it was not so well understood. Great
use was made of this root in preserves, but it was prohibited, as
interfering with the Indian trade in that wretched species of policy
which regards immediate revenue as its main object."

Ginger was worth in the London market 25s. to 60s. the cwt. in bond;
middling and fine qualities, 80s. to 160s. The duty is 5s. per cwt.

Amount of imports of ginger into the United Kingdom, with the
quantities entered for home consumption:--

West India Entered for East India Entered for
ginger. home consumption. ginger. home consumption.
cwts. cwts. cwts. cwts.
1831 3,551 4,709 849 79
1832 5,947 6,795 2,508 213
1833 6,064 6,570 10,049 1,099
1834 9,913 9,918 10,004 1,638
1835 8,321 8,982 4,489 1,647
1836 10,226 6,304 13,589 3,524
1837 10,933 9,905 23,876 3,386
1838 13,366 9,944 25,649 1,431
1839 8,996 7,213 29,624 914
1840 5,381 7,935 9,719 1,568
1841 4,446 5,523 5,292 1,177
1842 4,671 5,068 3,680 1,956
1843 4,013 5,953 4,106 3,254
casks, &c. casks. bags. bags.
1844 4,619 3,128 5,101 6,964
1845 6,033 4,000 8,165 7,938

Total Retained for
ginger imported. home consumption.
cwts. cwts.
1846 24,370 15,937
1846 20,010 15,163
1847 12,995 9,744
1848 13,748 10,454
1849 28,015 12,880
1850 33,953 16,543
1851 35,678 19,855
1852 20,297 18,691

GALANGALE ROOT is a good deal used in China, and forms an article of
commerce, fetching in the London market 12s. to 16s. per cwt. in
bond. It is the rhizoma of _Alpinia Galanga_. Its taste is peppery and
aromatic. Externally the color of the root-stocks is reddish brown,
internally pale reddish white.

1,280 cwt. of galangale root, valued at 2,880 dollars, was exported
from Canton in 1850.

CARDAMOMS.

Cardamoms are the production of various species of plants of the same
tribe as the ginger, and might be profitably cultivated with that
aromatic root, as well as the Turmeric (_Curcuma longa_), which see.

Various species of _Alpiniae_, _Amomum_, _Elettaria_, _and Renealmia_,
appear to furnish the cardamoms of the shops, which consist of the
oval, trivalvular capsules containing the seeds. The bright yellow
seeds are used in medicine as aromatic tonics and carminatives; and
for curries, ketchups, soups, &c. Their active ingredient is a pungent
volatile oil. The least dampness injures the finer sorts. About 688
cwts. of cardamoms, and 5,000 cwts. of bastard cardamoms are annually
exported from Siam, "We imported about 300 tons in 1849. The price
ranges from 1s. 6d. to 3s. the pound. The estimated value of the
cardamoms and pepper shipped from Ceylon in the past few years was as
follows:--1846, L208; 1847, L246; 1848, L205; 1849, L454; 1850, L960;
1851, L771; 1852, L590. The" following are some of the plants from
which cardamoms are procured.

1. _Amomum Cardamomum_, a Java plant, supplies the round cardamoms. It
has pale brown flowers. The fruit varies in size from that of a black
currant to a cherry.

_2. A. angustifolium_ (Pereira), a plant having red blossoms;
furnishes the large Madagascar cardamoms, and also supplies some of
the seeds called "Grains of Paradise," which are, however, larger than
those imported under that name.

This species is found in Abyssinia, according to my friend Mr. Chas.
Johnston, author of "Travels in Abyssinia," who favored me with some
specimens. The seeds are pale olive brown, devoid of the fiery peppery
taste of the grains of paradise.

3. _A. maximum_, the great winged amomum, produces the Java cardamoma
of the London market, and is also grown extensively in Ceylon, the
Malay islands, Nepaul, Sumatra, and other islands of the Eastern
Archipelago. There were exported from Ceylon in 1842, 5,364 lbs.; in
1843, 9,632 lbs.; 1844, 7,280 lbs.; and in 1845, 11,812 lbs. The pods
are large and long, and dark colored, approaching to black, the taste
nauseous and disagreeable, not the least resembling that of the
Malabar cardamoms. It is propagated by cuttings of the rhizoma. The
plants yield in three years, and afterwards give an annual crop. They
are not used here, but sent to the continent.

4. _Alpinia Cardamomum_.--This is the source of the clustered
cardamoms, and furnishes the best known sort. Its produce is in great
request throughout India, fetching as much as L30 the candy of 600
Lbs. About 192 candies are grown annually in Travancore, and the usual
crop in Malabar is reckoned at 100 candies annually. It flourishes on
the mountainous parts of the Malabar coast, and among the western
mountains of Wynaad. The bulbous plants, which grow three or four feet
high, are produced in the recesses of the mountains by felling trees,
and afterwards burning them, for wherever the ashes fall in the
openings or fissures of the rocks, the plant naturally springs up. In
the third year the plants come to perfection, bearing abundantly for a
year or two, and then die. In Soonda Balagat, and other places where
cardamoms are planted, they are much inferior to those grown in the
wild state. It may be propagated by cuttings or divisions of the
roots. Not more than one-hundredth part of the cardamoms raised in
Malabar are used in the country. They are sent in large quantities to
the ports on the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, up the Indus to
Scinde, to Bengal and Bombay. The price of Malabar cardamons at
Madras, in June, 1853, was about L3 the maund of 25 lbs. They fetch in
the Bombay market L4 10s. the maund of 40 lbs. Cardamoms form a
universal ingredient in curries, pillaus, &c. The seed capsules are
gathered as they ripen, and when dried in the sun are fit for sale.
They should be chosen full, plump, and difficult to be broken; of a
bright yellow color, and piercing smell; with an acrid bitterish,
though not very unpleasant taste, and particular care should be taken
that they are properly dried.

_5. Amomum Grana-Paradisi_, which is indigenous to the islands of
Madagascar and Ceylon, yields an inferior sort of cardamoms, known by
the names of grains of paradise, or Meleguetta pepper. These are worth
in the English market only from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d. per pound, while
the long and Malabar cardamoms fetch 2s. 8d. to 3s. 3d. the pound.
This plant is a native of Guinea, and the western parts of Africa
about Sierra Leone. We imported from thence in 1841, 7,911 pounds.

The taste of these Guinea grains is aromatic and vehemently hot or
peppery. They are imported in casks from Africa, and are principally
used in veterinary medicine, and to give an artificial strength to
spirits, wine, beer, &c. The average quantity on which duty was paid
in the six years ending with 1840, was 16,000 lbs. per annum. They are
esteemed in Africa the most wholesome of spices, and generally used by
the natives to season their food.