The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 95

The average annual quant.i.ty of sarsaparilla obtained from Mexico and South America, exclusive of Brazil, and taken for home consumption, in the twelve years ending with 1843 was 37,826 lbs.

IMPORTS OF BRAZILIAN SARSAPARILLA.

lbs.

1827 28,155 1828 49,280 1829 52,772 1830 19,842 1831 31,972 1832 91,238 1833 13,077 1834 28,803 1835 22,387 1836 1,718 1837 12,842 1838 -- 1839 9,484 1840 4,141 1841 1,399 1842 5,572

The total imports in 1849 were 118,934 lbs.

Sarsaparilla has been found growing in the Port Phillip district of Australia, and has been s.h.i.+pped thence in small quant.i.ties. It seems to be indigenous to the Bahamas, and is to be found on many of the out islands. Mr. Wm. Dalzell, of Abaco, collected some considerable quant.i.ty at a place called Marsh Harbor, which was found to be of a superior quality.

Some thousands of pounds of sarsaparilla were brought to Falmouth, Jamaica, last year, and bought by merchants for export. It came from the parish of St. Elizabeth, and there are whole forests covered with this weed, for such in reality it is. It is too the real black Jamaica sarsaparilla, that is so much valued in the European and American markets. It is also found in other parts of the island.

In 1798 3,674 lbs. of sarsaparilla were s.h.i.+pped from La Guayra; 2,394 lbs. in 1801 from Puerto Cabella, and 400 quintals from Costa Rica, in 1845, valued at eight dollars a quintal.

SENNA.--Several varieties of Ca.s.sia, natives of the East, are grown for the production of this drug. The dried leaves of C. _lanceolata_ or _orientalis_, grown in Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, the true Mecca senna, are considered the best. In Egypt the leaves of _Cynanchum Arghel_ are used for adulterating senna, _Ca.s.sia obovata_ or _C.

senna_, also a native of Egypt, cultivated in the East Indies, as well as in Spain, Italy, and Jamaica. It is a perennial herb, one or two feet high. In the East Indies there is a variety (_C. elongata_) common about Tinnivelly, Coimbatore, Bombay, and Agra, &c. Several of this species are common in the West India islands. The plants, which are for the most part evergreens, grow from two to fifteen feet high; they delight in a loamy soil, or mixture of loam or peat.

The seed is drilled in the ground, and the only attention required by the plant is loosening the ground and weeding two or three times when it is young.

The senna leaves imported from India are not generally so clean and free from rubbish as those from Alexandria. They are worth from 20s.

to 27s. per cwt. in the Bombay market.

The prices are--Alexandria, ld. to 6d. per lb.; East Indian, 2d. to 3d. per lb.; Tinnevelly, 7d. to 9d. per lb.

Senna is collected in various parts of Africa by the Arabs, who make two crops annually; one, the most productive, after the rains in August and September, the other about the middle of March. It is brought to Boulack, the port of Cairo, by the caravans, &c., from Abyssinia, Nubia, and Sennaar, also by the way of Cossier, the Red Sea, and Suez. The different leaves are mixed, and adulterated with arghel leaves. The whole s.h.i.+pments from Boulack to Alexandria, whence it finds it way to Europe, is 14,000 to 15,500 quintals.

The quant.i.ties imported for home consumption were--

From the East Indies. Other places. Total.

lbs. lbs. lbs.

1838 72,576 69,538 142,114 1839 110,409 63,766 174,175

In 1840, 211,400 lbs. paid duty, which is now only 1d. per lb.

In 1848, we imported 800,000 lbs. from India; in 1849, the total imports were 541,143 lbs. The imports into the United Kingdom were, in 1847, 246 tons; 1848, 402 tons; 1849, 240 tons.

Alexandrian senna (_Ca.s.sia acutifolia_). This species is said by some to const.i.tute the bulk of the senna consumed for medical purposes in Europe. It is much adulterated with the leaves of _Cynanchum Arghel, Tiphrosia apollinea_, and _Coriaria myrtifolia_.

_C. lanceolata_ and _C. ethiopica_ furnish other species of the same article, the greater part of the produce of which find its way to India, through the Red Sea, Surat, Bombay and Calcutta, the imports into Calcutta, in 1849, having been 79,212 lbs. _C. obovata_ furnishes the Aleppo and Italian drug.

At least eight varieties of senna leaf are known in commerce in Europe--1. the Senna palthe; 2. Senna of Sennaar or Alexandria; 3. of Tripoli; 4. of Aleppo; 5. of Moka; 6. of Senegambia; 7. the false or Arghel; 8. the Tinnevelly.

In Egypt the senna harvest takes place twice annually, in April and September; the stalks are cut off with the leaves, dried before the sun, and then packed with date leaves. At Boulka, the drug is sorted, mixed, and adulterated, and pa.s.sed into commerce through Alexandria.

Alexandrian senna, according to Mr. Jacob Bell ("Pharmaceutical Journal," vol. 2, p. 63), contains a mixture of two or more species of true senna. It consists princ.i.p.ally of _Ca.s.sia obovata_ and _C.

obtusata_, and according to some authorities it occasionally contains _C. acutifolia_. This mixture is unimportant, but the _Cynanchum Arghel_, which generally const.i.tutes a fifth of the weight on an average, possesses properties differing in some respects from true senna, and which render it particularly objectionable. The Tinnevelly senna, that most esteemed by the profession, is known by the size of the leaflets, which are much larger than those of any other variety; they are also less brittle, thinner and larger, and are generally found in a very perfect state, while the other varieties, especially the Alexandrian, are more or less broken. The leaves of the Cynanchum are similar in form to those of the lanceolate senna, but they are thicker and stiffer, the veins are scarcely visible, they are not oblique at the base, their surface is rugose, and the color grey or greenish drab; their taste is bitter and disagreeable, and they are often spotted with a yellow, intensely bitter gummo-resinous incrustation. Being less fragile than the leaflets of the true senna, they are more often found entire, and are very easily distinguishable from the varieties which const.i.tute true Alexandrian senna.

In their botanical character they are essentially different, being distinct leaves, not leaflets, which is the case with true senna.

The SUMBUL root, which has recently been introduced into the French market, is the root of an umbelliferous plant, which is characterised by a strong odor of musk. The pilgrims, on their return from Mecca, generally import to Salonika, Constantinople, &c., among other articles of trade, various plants with a musk-like odor. The preparation of these vegetable substances is said to be effected by smearing them over with musk-balsam.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Ure's Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures.]

[Footnote 2: Fractional parts are not necessary to include.]

[Footnote 3: Dr. Lindley is in error as to the discriminating duties--British cacao pays 9s., and foreign 18s.]

[Footnote 4: According to Breen's History of St. Lucia up to 1844.]

[Footnote 5: Caffeine (the principle of coffee) and theobromine (the principle of cacao) are the most highly nitrogenised products in nature, as the following a.n.a.lysis will show:--

_Caffeine_, according to Pfaff and Liebig, contains--

Carbon 49.77 Hydrogen 5.33 _Nitrogen_ 28.78 Oxygen 16.12

_Theobromine_, according to Woskreseusky, contains--

Carbon 47.21 Hydrogen 4.53 _Nitrogen_ 35.38 Oxygen 12.80

Of the two, cacao contains the larger quant.i.ty of nitrogen; and this chemical fact explains why cacao should be so much more nutritive than tea, though the principle of tea (theine) is nearly identical with the principle of cacoa--tea containing in 100 parts 29.009 of nitrogen. On this subject Liebig has made an observation which I cannot avoid noticing. He says, "We shall never certainly be able to discover how men were led to the use of the hot infusion of the leaves of a certain shrub (tea), or of a decoction of certain roasted seeds (coffee). Some cause there must be, which would explain how the practice has become a necessary of life to whole nations. But it is surely still more remarkable that the beneficial effects of both plants on the health must be ascribed to one and the same substance, the presence of which in two vegetables, belonging to different natural families, and the produce of different quarters of the globe, could hardly have presented itself to the boldest imagination. Yet recent researches have shown, in such a manner as to exclude all doubt, that caffeine, the peculiar principle of coffee, and theine, that of tea, are in all respects identical."--_(Anim. Chem.,_ pp. 178-9.) We really can see nothing in all this but the manifestation of that instinct which, implanted in us by the Almighty, led the untutored Indian (as we are pleased to call him) to breathe into the nostril of the buffalo or the wild horse, and by that single act to subdue his angry rage, or that impelled the first discoverer of combustion to extract fire from the attrition of two pieces of wood. The American Indian, living entirely on flesh, "discovered for himself in tobacco smoke a means of r.e.t.a.r.ding the change of matter in the tissues of the body, and thereby of making hunger more endurable."--(P. 179.) But the wonder ceases, when we reflect that man was endued with certain properties by his Maker which must have been at some remote period, of which we can form no idea, active and manifest the moment he breathed the breath of life. To inquire how he lost this property is not our business at present, but it is only by supposing the _quondam_ existence of such a property, active and manifest, that can in any way explain a first knowledge of the therapeutic, or threptic, qualities of plants and shrubs. With regard to the ident.i.ty of theine, caffeine, theobromine, &c., it would be as well that the reader should keep in mind that it is so chemically _only_, for in appearance, taste, weight, odor, &c., no substances can differ more. Does the palate exert some peculiar action on the ingesta, so as to give to each a distinct sapor? Or _vice versa_?]

[Footnote 6: In the West Indies, from my own experience, I have found this to be one of the worst descriptions of soil. _P.L.S._]

[Footnote 7: Correspondent of the Singapore _Free Press_, December, 1852.]

[Footnote 8: It is important, in considering what tea may be had from China, to consider the manner of its production. It is grown over an immense district, in small farms, or rather gardens, no farm producing more that 600 chests. "The tea merchant goes himself, or sends his agents to all the small towns, villages, and temples in the district, to purchase tea from the priests and small farmers; the large merchant, into whose hands the tea thus comes, _has to refire it and pack it for the foreign market."--(Fortune's Tea Districts.)_ This refiring is the only additional process of manufacture for our market.

Mr. Fortune elsewhere, in his valuable work, giving an account of the cost of tea from the farmers, the conveyance to market, and the merchant's profit, states that " the small farmer and manipulator is not overpaid, but that the great profits are received by the middlemen." No doubt these men do their utmost to keep the farmers in complete ignorance of the state of the tea-market, that they may monopolise the advantages, but it is pretty certain that the news of a bold reduction of duty, and the promise of an immensely increased consumption, would reach even the Chinese farmers, and make them pick their trees more closely--a little of which amongst so many would make a vast difference in the total supply.]

[Footnote 9: See article Thea, by Dr. Royle, in "Penny Cyclopaedia,"

vol xxiv., p. 286.]

[Footnote 10: Hooker's "Bot. Mag.," 1.3148. It is the a.s.sam tea plant.]

[Footnote 11: Report on Tea Cultivation submitted to House of Commons.

See Blue Book, 1839, p. 1-3.]

[Footnote 12: In a short time rain gauges will be established at Bheemtal, Huwalbaugh, Paoree, and Kaolagir, in order to measure the quant.i.ty of rain that falls annually, for the purpose of ascertaining how much the quant.i.ty and quality of the produce of tea is affected by the weather.]

[Footnote 13: In China this process, according to the statement of tea manufacturers, is carried on to a great extent.]

[Footnote 14: Dr. Jameson, in a late communication, remarks--"From the accounts I have received of that place (Darjeeling), I doubt not but that the plants there grown will yield tea of a superior description."]

[Footnote 15: The crops of this district, such as rice, mundooa, and other grains, are so plentiful and cheap as scarcely to pay the carriage to the nearest market town, much less to the plains. In Almorah a maund of rice or mundooa sells for something less than a rupee; barley for eight annas; and wheat for a rupee.]

[Footnote 16: There is frequently a discrepancy in the figures in the Parliamentary papers, which will account for a want of agreement in some of these returns.]

[Footnote 17: See the "Pharmaceutical Journal" for June, 1849, p. 15, et seq.]