The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 54

The roots of a thistle (_Cersium virginianium_, or _Carduus virginia.n.u.s_), which are about the ordinary size of carrots, are also eaten by them. They are sweet and well flavored, but require a long preparation to fit them for use.

The people of Southern India and Ceylon have for many hundred years been in the habit of eating the bulb or root, which is the first shoot from the Palmyra nut, which forms the germ of the future tree, and is known locally as _Pannam kilingoes_. It is about the size of a common carrot, though nearly white. It forms a great article of food among the natives for several months in the year; but Europeans dislike it from its being very bitter. Recent experiments have proved that a farina superior to arrowroot can be obtained from it, prepared in the same way; and 100 roots, costing 2d., yield one and a-half to two pounds of the flour.

From the boiled inner bark of the Russian larch, mixed with rye flour, and afterwards buried a few hours in the snow, the hardy Siberian hunters prepare a sort of leaven, with which they supply the place of common leaven when the latter is destroyed, as it frequently is by the intense cold. The bark is nearly as valuable as oak bark. From the inner bark the Russians manufacture fine white gloves, not inferior to those made of the most delicate chamois, while they are stronger, cooler, and more pleasant for wearing in the summer.

The fruit of the _Cycas angulata_ forms the princ.i.p.al food of the Australian aborigines during a portion of the year. They cut it into thin slices, which are first dried, afterwards soaked in water, and finally packed up in sheets of tea-tree bark. In this condition it undergoes a species of fermentation; the deleterious properties of the fruit are destroyed, and a mealy substance with a musty flavor remains, which the blacks probably bake into cakes. They appear also to like the fruit of the _Panda.n.u.s_, of which large quant.i.ties were found by Dr. Leichardt in their camps, soaking in water, contained in vessels formed of stringy bark.

The flour obtained from the seeds of Spurry (_Spergula sativa_), when mixed with that of wheat or rye, produces wholesome bread, for which purpose it is often used in Norway and Gothland. In New Zealand, before the introduction of the potato, the roots of the fern were largely consumed.

Many species of _Bolitus_ are used as food by the natives in Western Australia, according to Drummond.

The thick tuberous roots of a climbing species of bean (_Pachyrhizus angulatus_, or _Dolichos bulbosus_) are cultivated and eaten in some parts of the Polynesian islands. The bulbous roots of some species of Orchideae are eagerly sought after in New South Wales by the natives, being termed "boyams," and highly esteemed as an article of food for the viscid mucilage which they contain. The root of the Berar (_Caladium costatum_) is eaten by the natives of the Pedir coast (Achin), after being well washed.

The pignons or edible seeds of _Pinus Pinea_ are consumed occasionally in Italy. In Chili the cone or fruit of the _pehuen_, or _pino de la tierra_, are considered a great delicacy. The _pinones_ are sometimes boiled, and afterwards, by grinding them on a stone, converted into a kind of paste, from which very delicate pastry is made. The pine is cultivated in different parts of this province on account of its valuable wood and the pinones. The seeds from the cones of the Auracanean pine, collected in autumn, furnish the Pawenches (from _pawen_ pine) and Auracanians with a very nutritious food. When cooked, the flavor is not unlike that of the chesnut, and as they will keep for some time, they const.i.tute, when the gathering season has been favorable, a great part of their diet.

The seeds of the cones of the nut pine (_Pinus monophyllus_), a new species described by Dr. Torrey, and alluded to by Col. Fremont in his exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains, are largely used by the North American Indians. The nut is oily, of a most agreeable flavor, and must be very nutritious as it const.i.tutes the princ.i.p.al subsistence of many of the native tribes.

The cone of another magnificent pine (_Auracaria Bidwillii_), indigenous to the Eastern coast of Australia, about the Moreton Bay district, is frequently met with twelve inches in diameter, and containing 150 edible seeds as large as a walnut. The aborigines roast these seeds, crack the husk between two stones, and eat them hot. They taste something like a yam or hard dry potato. The trees bear cones only once in four years, during a period of six months.

This season is held as a great festival by the aborigines of that locality, called by them Bunga Bunga, and they congregate in greater numbers than is known in any other part of Australia, frequently coming from a distance of 300 miles. They grow sleek and fat upon this diet. An Act has been pa.s.sed by the legislature of the colony, prohibiting, under heavy pains and penalties, the demolition of those trees, being the natural food of the natives.

The common people eat the seeds of the red sandal wood (_Adenanthera Pavonina_) in the South of India. The pulp of the fruit of the _Adansonia digitata_, or monkey bread, is also used as an article of food.

SINGHARA OR WATER NUTS.--The large seeds of _Trapa bicornis_, a native of China, and of _T. bispinosa_ and _natans_, species indigenous to India, are sweet and eatable, and the aquatic plants which furnish them are hence an extensive article of cultivation. In Cashmere and other parts of the East they are common food, and known under the name of Singhara nuts. In Cashmere the government obtains from these nuts 12,000 of annual revenue. Mr. Moorcroft mentions that Runjeet Sing derived nearly the same sum. From 96,000 to 128,000 loads of this nut are yielded annually by the lake of Ooller alone. The nut abounds in fecula. In China the kernel is used as an article of food, being roasted or boiled like the potato. The seeds of various species of _Nelumbium_, natives of the East Indies, Jamaica, and the United States, also form articles of food. The fruit of _N. speciosum_ is supposed to be the Egyptian bean of Pythagoras. The petioles and peduncles contain numerous spiral vessels, which have been used for wicks of candles. The fruit of _Willughbeia edulis_, a native of the East, as its name implies, is eatable. The kernel of the mango can be reduced to an excellent flour for making bread.

Not only from the Lichen tribe, but also from the Algae, fungi, mosses and ferns man derives nutriment and valuable products. Some of the cryptogamic plants form considerable articles of commerce, particularly as food plants, affording gelatinous and amylaceous matter, and being useful in medicine and the arts.

_Nostoe eduli_ is used in China as food; _Gelidium corneum_ enters into the formation of the edible swallows' nests of the j.a.panese islands. Agar-agar moss is s.h.i.+pped from Singapore to the extent of 13,000 tons a-year. Irish moss, Iceland moss, Ceylon moss, and some others, are also of some importance. Iodine and kelp are prepared to a considerable extent from sea weeds; one species (_Fucus tenax_) furnishes large supplies of glue to the Canton market, and the orchilla weed is of great importance to the dyer. It is princ.i.p.ally as food that I have to speak of them in this section.

In some of the islands off the Scotch coasts, sea-wrack (_Fucus vesiculosus_) forms the chief support of horses and cattle in the winter months. _F. serratus_ is similarly employed in Norway.

The _Laminaria saccharina_ is interesting from the fact of its containing sugar. It is highly esteemed in j.a.pan, where it is extensively used as an article of diet, being first washed in cold water and then boiled in milk or broth.

CARRAGEEN, or IRISH ROCK MOSS, _Sphaeroccus_ (_Chondus_) _crispus_, abounds on the Western Coast of Ireland, round the Orkneys, Hebrides, Scilly Islands, &c. It is purplish white, and nearly transparent, and is largely imported to feed cattle and pigs in Yorks.h.i.+re. It is also used for dressing the warp of webs in the loom, and mixing with the pulp for sizing paper in the vat. It swells up like tragacanth in water; and, by long decoction, affords a considerable quant.i.ty of a light, nutritious, but nauseous jelly. It is sometimes sold as pearl moss, and is employed in the place of gelatine or isingla.s.s for preparing blanc-manges, jellies, &c. It fetches about 7 the ton.

AGAR-AGAR, a sort of edible seaweed, or tripe de roche, is found growing on the rocks about the eastern islands that are covered by the tide. It is much used for making a kind of jelly, which is highly esteemed both by Europeans and natives for the delicacy of its flavor.

The first quality is worth about 30s. the picul (133 lbs.). An inferior kind is collected on the submerged banks in the neighbourhood of Maca.s.sar (Celebes), by the Bajow Laut, or Sea Gipsies. It is also collected on the rocks about the settlement of Singapore, for export to China, where it is much used as a size for stiffening silks and for making jellies. It const.i.tutes the bulk of the cargoes of the Chinese junks on their return voyage. The quant.i.ty s.h.i.+pped from Singapore is about 10,000 piculs (12,500 tons) annually.

ICELAND MOSS (_Cetraria islandica_) combines valuable alimentary and medicinal properties. It is imported in bags and barrels from Hamburg and Gothenburg, and is said to be the produce of Norway and Iceland.

The quant.i.ty consumed varies; in 1836, 20,599 lbs. paid duty; in 1840, 6,462 lbs. In Carniola, swine, oxen, and horses, are fattened on it.

Boiled in water or milk, and flavored to the palate with sugar, wine, and aromatics, it forms a very agreeable diet for invalids.

CEYLON MOSS (_Gracelaria_, or _Gigartina, lichenoides_), a small and delicate fucus, is well known for the amylaceous property it possesses, and the large proportion of true starch it furnishes. The fronds are filiform; the filaments much branched, and of a light purple color. It grows abundantly in the large lake or back-water which extends between Putlam and Calpentyr, Ceylon. It is collected by the natives princ.i.p.ally during the south-west monsoon, when it becomes separated by the agitation of the water. The moss is spread on mats and dried in the sun for two or three days. It is then washed several times in fresh water, and again exposed to the sun, which bleaches it, after which it is collected in heaps for exportation.

Professor O'Shaughnessy has given the best a.n.a.lysis of this moss, which he described under the name of _Fucus amylaceus_; 100 grains weight yielded the following proportions:--

Vegetable jelly 54.50 True starch 15.00 Ligneous fibre 18.00 Sulphate and muriate of soda 6.50 Gum 4.00 Sulphate and phosphate of lime 1.00 ----- Total 99.00 With a trace of wax and iron.

I observe among the imports into New Orleans, 911 bushels of Spanish moss in 1849, and 1,394 bushels in 1848. I do not know precisely its use, or from whence derived, but I believe it is chiefly used for stuffing cus.h.i.+ons, mattresses, &c.

FERN.--The rhizome of _Pteris esculenta_ is used as food in Australia, and that of _Marattia alata_ in the Sandwich Islands. The trunks of the _Alsophila_, or tree fern, of the western side of Van Diemen's Land, and of the common tree fern, _Cibotium Billardieri_ (the _d.i.c.ksonia antarctica_, of Labillardiere), contain the edible pith or bread-fruit eaten by the natives. Many other species of ferns are esculent. Typha bread is prepared in Scinde from the pollen of the flowers of the _Typha elephantina_, and in New Zealand from another species of bulrush (_Typha utilis_).

"It must not be supposed, as some have believed, that the fern root, wherever it grows, is fit for food. On the contrary, it is only that found in rich loose soils which contains fecula in sufficient quant.i.ty for this purpose: in poorer ground the root contains proportionally more fibre. We were now encamped on an alluvial flat in the valley of the river, thirty or forty feet below the general level of the plain; and I observed that, even in this favourable spot, a great deal of discrimination was used in selecting the best roots, which was discoverable by their being crisp enough to break easily when bent: those which would not stand this test being thrown aside. Here a quant.i.ty sufficient for several days was procured, and was packed in baskets, to last till another spot equally favourable could be reached.

"The process of cooking fern root is very simple; for it is merely roasted on the fire, and afterwards bruised by means of a flat stone similar to a cobbler's lap-stone, and a wooden pestle. The long fibres which run like wires through the root are then easily drawn out; and the remainder is pounded till it acquires the consistence of tough dough, in which state it is eaten, its taste being very like that of ca.s.sava bread. Sometimes it is sweetened with the juice of the 'tutu.'

"The natives consider that there is no better food than this for a traveller, as it both appeases the cravings of hunger for a longer period than their other ordinary food, and renders the body less sensible to the fatigue of a long march. It is in this respect to the human frame, what oats or beans are to the horse. They have a song in praise of this root, which I have once or twice heard chanted on occasions of festivals, by a troop of young women who carry baskets of the food intended for the guests."--("Shortland's New Zealand.")

I ought not to omit noticing the _Tuber cibarium_, a plant of the mushroom family, growing under ground, which furnishes the famous truffle, so celebrated in the annals of cooking, of which immense quant.i.ties are imported, chiefly from the South of France. It is common also in Italy and Germany, and is often found in Northamptons.h.i.+re, and some other of our own counties. The "kemmayes,"

a desert plant of the truffle kind, is a great favorite with the Arabs.

In Terra del Fuego the only vegetable food of the natives, besides a few berries of a dwarf arbutus, is a species of globular bright yellow fungus (_Cyttaria Darwinii_), which grows in vast numbers on the beech trees. In its tough and mature state it is collected in large quant.i.ties by the women and children, and eaten uncooked. It has a slightly sweet mucilaginous taste, with a faint smell like that of a mushroom.

SECTION III.

SPICES, AROMATIC CONDIMENTS, FRAGRANT WOODS, &c.

The various spices and condiments which form so large an item in our commercial imports, are obtained from the barks, the dried seeds, the fruit, flower-buds, and root-stocks, of different plants. The chief aromatic barks comprise the cinnamon, ca.s.sia lignea, cascarilla, and canella alba. The medicinal barks will be noticed elsewhere. The seeds and fruits include pepper, pimento, cardamoms, anise, nutmegs, chillies. The flower-buds of some furnish cloves and ca.s.sia buds; the roots supply ginger, galangale, turmeric, and ginseng. A few other useful substances, such as vanilla, the costus, or putchuk, mace, soy, and some of the odoriferous woods I have included under this section.

CINNAMON.

The true cinnamon of commerce is obtained from the inner bark of _Cinnamonum verum_, R. Brown; or _C. zeylanic.u.m_; the _Laurus cinnamonum_, of Linnaeus, a handsome looking tree, native of the East Indies. The island of Ceylon is the chief seat of its cultivation, and for a long time the Dutch depended solely for their supply of this bark for the home market on the produce of the wild cinnamon trees in the King of Kandy's territories there. At last, from the increasing demand, they resorted to the growth and more careful culture of the tree themselves. About the year 1794, the cultivation had succeeded so well that they were enabled to meet the demand for the spice from trees of their own growth, independent of any supplies from the Kandian monarch's territory.

In 1796, when this island fell into our hands, the local government endeavoured, after the former fas.h.i.+on of the Dutch, to restrain the production of this article of commerce within due bounds, by destroying all above a certain quant.i.ty.

General Maitland, in 1805, and his successors in the government, seeing the folly of such a ridiculous policy, very wisely fostered and promoted the extended cultivation of cinnamon plantations.

In the island of Java, and in Cochin-China, cinnamon culture has within the last few years made considerable progress.

The leaves of the cinnamon tree are more or less ac.u.minated, from five to eight inches long, by about three broad, growing in pairs opposite each other. They have three princ.i.p.al ribs, which come in contact at its base, but do not unite. The leaves, when first developed, are of a bright red hue, then of a pale yellow, and lastly of a dark s.h.i.+ning green; when mature, they emit a strong aromatic odor if broken or rubbed in the hands, and have the pungent taste of cloves. The young twigs of the true cinnamon tree are not downy, like those of the ca.s.sia bark. The plant blooms in January and February, and the seeds ripen in July and August.

The blossoms grow on slender foot-stalks, of a pale yellow color, from the axillae of the leaves and the extremity of the branches. They are numerous cl.u.s.ters of small white flowers, having a brownish shade in the centre, about the same size as the lilac, which it resembles. The fruit is a drupe, about the size of a small hedge strawberry, containing one seed, and of the shape of an acorn, which when ripe is soft and of a dark purple color.

The roots are fibrous, hard, and tough, covered with an odoriferous bark; on the outside of a greyish brown, and on the inside of a reddish hue. They strike about three feet into the earth, and spread to a considerable distance. Many of them smell strongly of camphor, which is sometimes extracted from them.

The trees in their wild state will grow ordinarily to the height of 30 feet. The trunk is about three feet in circ.u.mference, and throws out a great number of large spreading horizontal branches, clothed with thick foliage. When cultivated for their bark, the trees are not permitted to rise above the height of ten feet.

The true cinnamon tree (according to Mr. Crawfurd) is not a native of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; but Marshall, in his description and history of the tree ("Annals of Philos," vol. x.) a.s.signs very extensive limits to its cultivation. He a.s.serts that it is found on the Malabar coast, in Cochin-China, and Tonquin, Sumatra, the Soolo Archipelago, Borneo, Timor, the Nicobar and Philippine Islands. It has been transplanted, and grows well in the Mauritius, Bourbon and the eastern coast of Africa; in the Brazils, Guiana, in South America, and Guadaloupe, Martinique, Tobago, and Jamaica; but produces in the West a bark of very inferior quality to the Oriental.

Rumphius has remarked, that the trees which yield cinnamon, ca.s.sia, and clove bark (_Cinnamonum Culilaban_), though so much alike, are hardly ever found in the same countries.

The term clove bark has been applied to the barks of two different trees belonging to the natural order _Laurineae_. One of these barks is frequently called "Culilaban bark." It consists of almost flat pieces, and is obtained from _Cinnamonum Culilaban_, a tree growing in Amboyna, and probably other parts of the Moluccas.

The other bark, known as clove bark, occurs in quills, which are imported from South America. Murray says it is produced by the _Myrtus carophyllata_, a tree termed by Decandolle _Syzgium carophyllaeum_. It appears, however, that this is an error, for both Nees and Von Martius declare it to be the produce of _Dicypellium caryophyllatum_; and the last quoted authority states that this tree is the n.o.blest of all the laurels found in the Brazils, where it is called "Pao Cravo." It grows at Para and Rio Negro.