The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 45

There are a variety of pulses and leguminous seeds extensively cultivated as food for both man and cattle, and which form an important article in the husbandry of tropical countries. The importance of peas and beans is well appreciated, both by the horticulturists and agriculturists in Europe and our temperate colonies, where, however, they are comparatively of less importance than the smaller pulses and grains are in various tropical countries, such as haricots in the Brazils and West Indies; ground or earth nuts in South America, and especially in Western Africa; beans of different kinds amongst the miners of Peru; gram (_Ervum lens_), and dholl (_Caja.n.u.s_), with innumerable varieties of beans and small lentils among the natives of India and Egypt; and the Carob bean, or St.

John's bread (_Ceratonia siliqua_), in the Mediterranean countries.--("Jury Reports.")

Of leguminous grains there are various species cultivated and used by the Asiatics, as the _Phaseolus Mungo_, _P. Max_ and _P. radiatus_, which contain much alimentary matter; the earth-nut (_Arachis hypogaea_), which buries its pods under ground after flowering.

The gram (_Cicer arictinum_) which is mentioned by Dr. Christie ("Madras Journal of Science," No. 13) as exuding oxalic acid from all parts of the plant. It is used by the ryots in their curries instead of vinegar. It is the chick pea of England, and _chenna_ of Hindostan.

Among the most commonly cultivated leguminous plants are the lentil (_Ervum lens_), horse gram (_Dolichos biflorus_, Linn), various species of _Cytisus_ and _Caja.n.u.s_, &c. Many of these are grown in India as fodder plants; others for their seeds, known as gram, dholl, &c. The _Caja.n.u.s flavus_, of Decandolle (_Cytisus Cajan_), is very generally cultivated along the Western coast of Africa, and continues to bear for three years. Several species of dolichos are used as food in various countries, as _D. ensiformus_ in Jamaica, _D. tuberosus_ in Martinique, _D. bulbosus_ and _D. lignosus_ in the East Indies.

The vessels of the North bring to Shanghae a great quant.i.ty of a dry paste, known under the name of tanping, the residuum or husk of a leguminous plant called Teuss, from which the Chinese extract oil, and which is used, after being pressed, as manure for the ground. Captain H. Biggs, in a communication to the Agri.-Hort. Soc. of India, in 1845, states that of the esculents a large white pea forms the staple of the trade of Shanghae, or nearly so, to the astonis.h.i.+ng amount of two and a-half millions sterling. This he gives on the authority of the Rev. Mr. Medhurst, of Shanghae, and Mr. Thorns, British Consul at Ningpo. These peas are ground in a mill and then pressed, in a somewhat complicated, though, as usual in China, a most efficient press, by means of wedges driven under the outer parts of the framework with mallets. The oil is used both for eating and burning, more for the latter purpose, however, and the cake, like large Gloucester cheese, or small grindstones in circular shape, is distributed about China in every direction, both as food for pigs and buffaloes, as also for manure.

We import on the average about 20,000 quarters of beans, peas, &c., from Ireland, 450,000 quarters of beans and 200,000 quarters of peas from foreign countries.

The land under cultivation with pulse, and the crops raised, have been estimated as follows:--

Acres. Quarters.

England 500,000 1,875,000 Ireland 130,000 540,000 Scotland 50,000 150,000 ------- --------- 680,000 2,565,000

This is of course exclusive of garden cultivation. The average produce of beans per acre in England is 3 quarters, 3 in Ireland, and three in Scotland.

The price of beans per quarter in the last ten years has ranged from 39s. to 27s. the quarter; peas from 40s. 6d. to 27s. 6d.

_Algaroba beans_.--The seed pods or bean of the carob-tree (_Ceratonia siliqua_, or _Prosopis pallida_?) a tree common in the Levant and South of Europe, are used as food. The pods contain a large proportion of sweet fecula, and are frequently used by singers, being considered to improve the voice. The name of St. John's Head has been applied to them, from the supposition that they were the wild honey spoken of in Scripture as the food of John the Baptist. About 40,000 quintals of these carobs are annually exported from Crete. During the Peninsular war, the horses of our cavalry were princ.i.p.ally fed upon these algaroba seeds. The pods of the West India locust tree, _Hymenaea courbaril_, also supply a nutritious matter.

That well known sauce, Soy, is made in some parts of the East, from a species of the Dolichos bean (_Soja hispida_), which grows in China and j.a.pan. In Java it is procured from the _Phaseolus radiatus_. The beans are boiled soft, with wheat or barley of equal quant.i.ties, and left for three months to ferment; salt and water are then added, when the liquor is pressed and strained. Good soy is agreeable when a few years old; the j.a.pan soy is superior to the Chinese. Large quant.i.ties are s.h.i.+pped for England and America. The Dolichos bean is much cultivated in j.a.pan, where various culinary articles are prepared from it; but the princ.i.p.al are a sort of b.u.t.ter, termed _mico_, and a pickle called _sooja_.

1,108 piculs of soy were s.h.i.+pped from Canton in 1844, for London, British India, and Singapore. 100 jars, or about 50 gallons of soy, were received at Liverpool in 1850. The price is about 6s. per gallon in the London market.

THE SAGO PALMS, BREAD-FRUIT, &c.

Sago, and starchy matter allied to it, is obtained from many palms. It is contained in the cellular tissue of the stem, and is separated by bruising and elutriation. From the soft stem of _Cycas circinalis_, a kind of sago is produced in the East and West Indies. The finest is, however, procured from the stems of _Sagus laevis_ (_S. inermis_, of Roxburgh), a native of Borneo and Sumatra; and _Arenga saccharifera_, or _Gomutus saccharifus_, of Rumphius. The _Saguerus Rumphii_, or _Metroxylon Sagus_, which is found in the Eastern Islands of the Indian Ocean, yields a feculent matter. After the starchy substance is washed out of the stems of these palms, it is then granulated so as to form sago. The last-mentioned palm also furnishes a large supply of sugar. Sago as well as sugar, and a kind of palm wine, are procured from _Caryota urens_.

In China sago is obtained from _Rhapis flabelliformis_, a dwarfish palm; and some sago is made from it for native use in Travancore, Mysore, and Wynaad, and the jungles in the East Indies.

The trunk of the sago palm is five or six feet round, and it grows to the height of about 20 feet. It can only be propagated by seed. It flourishes best in bogs and swampy marshes; a good plantation being often a bog, knee deep. The pith producing the sago is seldom of use till the tree is fourteen or fifteen years old; and the tree does not live longer than thirty years. Mr. Crawfurd says there are four varieties of this palm; the cultivated, the wild, one distinguished by long spines on the branches, and a fourth dest.i.tute of these spines, and called by the natives female sago. This and the cultivated species afford the best farina; the spiny variety, which has a slender trunk, and the wild tree, yield but an inferior quality of sago. The farinaceous matter afforded by each plant is very considerable, 500 lbs. being a frequent quant.i.ty, while 300 lbs. may be taken as the common average produce of each tree.

Supposing the plants set at a distance of ten feet apart, an acre would contain 435 trees, which, on coming to maturity in fifteen years, would yield at the before-mentioned rate 120,500 lbs. annually of farinaceous matter. The sago meal, in its raw state, will keep good about a month. The Malays and natives of the Eastern Islands, with whom it forms the chief article of sustenance, partially bake it in earthenware moulds into small hard cakes, which will keep for a considerable time. In Java the word "saga" signifies bread. The sago palm (_Metroxylon Sagus_) is one of the smallest of its tribe, seldom reaching to more than 30 feet in height, and grows only in a region extending west to Celebes and Borneo, north to Mindanao, south to Timor, and east to Papua. Ceram is its chief seat, and there large forests of it are found. The edible farina is the central pith, which varies considerably in different trees, and as to the time required for its attaining proper maturity. It is eaten by the natives in the form of pottage. A farina of an inferior kind is supplied by the Gomuti palm (_Bora.s.sus gomutus_), another tree peculiar to the Eastern Archipelago growing in the valleys of hilly tracts.

At so great a distance it is difficult to decide as to which of these trees really produce the ordinary sagos of commerce, for there are several kinds. Planche, in an excellent memoir on the sagos, has described six species, which he distinguishes by the names of the places from which they come. Preferring to cla.s.sify them according to their characters, M. Mayet distinguishes only three species.

The first he denominates Ancient sago, which comes from different parts, and varies much in color. It comprehends--1st, Maldivian sago of Planche, in spherical globules, of two or three millimetres in diameter, translucid, of an unequal pinkish white color, very hard and insipid. 2nd, New Guinea sago, of Planche, in rather smaller globules, of a bright red color on one side, and white on the other. 3rd. Grey sago of the Moluccas or brown sago of the English; of unequal globules, from one to three millimetres in diameter, opaque, of a dull grey color on one side, and whitish on the other. This grey color probably arises from long keeping and humidity. 4th. Large grey sago of the Moluccas, exactly resembling No. 3, only that the globules are from four to eight millimetres in diameter. 5th. Fine white sago of the Moluccas; entirely resembling No. 3, only that it is purely white, owing to the complete edulcoration of the fecula of which it is made.

Whatever may be the places of origin of these sagos, they all possess the following characters--

Rounded globules, generally spherical, all isolated, very hard, elastic, and difficult to break or powder. The globules put into water, generally swell to twice their original size, but do not adhere together.

_Second sage_.--This species corresponds with the pinkish sago of the Moluccas of Planche. It is in very small globules, less regular than those of the "first sago," and sometimes stuck together to the number of two or three. Soaked in water, it swells to double its volume.

Third Species.--_Tapioca sago_.---This name has been applied to a species of sago now abundant in commerce, because it bears the same relation to the ancient or first sago, and even to the preceding sago, that tapioca bears to "Moussache," which is the fecula of the manioc, _Janipha manihot (Manihot utilissima_).

Whilst the two preceding species of sago, whatever may have been stated to the contrary, have been neither baked nor submitted to any heating process, as is proved by the perfect state of nearly all their grains of fecula, this species has been subjected to the action of heat while in a state of a moist paste. This sago is not in spherical globules, like the two preceding species, or at least there are but few of the globules of that form; it is rather in the form of very small irregular tubercular ma.s.ses, formed by the adherence of different numbers of the primary globules. The facility with which this sago swells and is divided by water, has occasioned it to be preferred as an article of food to the ancient sago. It has been described by Planche under the name of the white sago of the Moluccas, and by Dr. Pereira under the name of pearl sago.

Bennet, in his work on "Ceylon and its Capabilities," (1843), states that sago is procured from the granulated pith of the talipot palm, _Corypha umbraculifera_.

The _Sagus Rumphii_, Willdenow, and _S. farinifera_, Gaertner.--Before maturity, and previous to the formation of the fruit, the stem consists of a thin hard wall, about two inches thick, and of an enormous volume of tissue (commonly termed the _medulla_ or _pith_), from which the farina or sago is obtained. As the fruit forms, the farinaceous medulla disappears, and when the tree, attains full maturity, the stem is no more than a hollow sh.e.l.l. Sago occurs in commerce in two states, pulverulent and granulated. 1. The meal or flour as imported in the form of a fine amylaceous powder. It is whitish, with a buffy or reddish tint. Its odor is faint, but somewhat unpleasant and musty. 2. Granulated sago is of two kinds, pearl and common brown. The former occurs in small hard grains, not exceeding in size that of a pin's head, inodorous, and having little taste. They have a brownish or pinkish yellow tint, and are somewhat translucent.

By the aid of a solution of chloride of lime they can be bleached, and rendered perfectly white. The dealers, it is said, pay 7 per ton for bleaching it. Common sago occurs in larger grains, about the size of pearl barley, which are brownish white.

Sago is an article of exportation to Europe, and is also s.h.i.+pped to India, princ.i.p.ally Bengal, and to China. It is in its granulated form that it is usually sent abroad. The best sago is the produce of Siak, on the north coast of Sumatra. This is of a light brown color, the grains large, and not easily broken. The sago of Borneo is the next in value; it is whiter, but more friable. The produce of the Moluccas, though greatest in quant.i.ty, is of the smallest estimation. The cost of granulated sago, from the hands of the grower or producer, was, according to Mr. Crawfurd, only a dollar a picul. It fetches in the London market--common pearl, 20s. to 26s. the cwt., sago flour, 20s.

the cwt. The Chinese of Malacca and Singapore have invented a process by which they refine sago, so as to give it a fine pearly l.u.s.tre, and it is from thence we now princ.i.p.ally derive our supplies of this article. The exports from Singapore in 1847 exceeded 6 million pounds, but are now much larger.

The following is a description of the manufacture of this important article of commerce:--The tree being cut down, the exterior bark is removed, and the heart, or pith of the palm, a soft, white, spongy and mealy substance is gathered; and for the purpose of distant transportation, it is put into conical bags, made of plantain leaves, and neatly tied up. In that state it is called by the Malays _Sangoo tampin_, or bundles of sago; each bundle weighs about 30 lbs.

On its arrival at Singapore it is purchased by the Chinese manufacturers of sago, and is thus treated:--Upon being carried to the manufactory, the plantain-leaf covering is removed, and the raw sago, imparting a strong acid odor, is bruised, and is put into large tubs of cold spring water, where it undergoes a process of purification by being stirred, suffered to repose, and again re-stirred in newly-introduced water. When well purified thus, it is taken out of the tubs by means of small vessels; and being mixed with a great deal of water, the liquid is gently poured upon a large and slightly inclined trough, about ten inches in height and width; and in the descent towards the depressed end, the sago is deposited in the bottom of the trough, whilst the water flows into another large tub, where what may remain of sago is finally deposited. As the strata of deposited sago increases in the trough, small pieces of slates are adjusted to its lower end to prevent the escape of the substance. When by this pouring process the trough becomes quite full of sago, it is then removed to make room for a fresh one, whilst the former one is put out into the air, under cover, for a short time; and on its being well dried, the sago within is cut into square pieces and taken out to be thoroughly dried, under cover, to protect it from the sun. It has then lost the acid smell already noticed, and has become quite white.

After one day's drying thus, it is taken into what may be called the manufactory, a long shed, open in front and on one side, and closed at the other and in the rear. Here the lumps of sago are broken up, and are reduced into an impalpable flour, which is pa.s.sed through a sieve.

The lumps, which are retained by the sieve are put back to be re-bruised, whilst that portion which has pa.s.sed is collected, and is placed in a long cloth bag, the gathered ends of which, like those of a hammock, are attached to a pole, which pole being suspended to a beam of the building by a rope, one end of it is sharply thrown forward with a particular jerk, by means of which the sago within is shortly granulated very fine, and becomes what is technically termed "pearled." It is then taken out and put into iron vessels, called _quallies_, for the purpose of being dried. These quallies are small elliptical pans, and resemble in form the sugar coppers of the West Indies, and would each hold about five gallons of fluid. They are set a little inclining, and in a range, over a line of furnaces, each one having its own fire. Before putting in the sago to be dried, a cloth, which contains a small quant.i.ty of hog's-lard, or some oily substance, is hastily pa.s.sed into the qually, and the sago is equally quickly put into it, and a Chinese laborer who attends it, commences stirring it with a _pallit_, and thus continues his labor during the few minutes necessary to expel the moisture contained in the substance. Thus each qually, containing about ten pounds of sago, requires the attendance of a man. The sago, on being taken off the fire, is spread out to cool on large tables, after which it is fit to be packed in boxes, or put into bags for s.h.i.+pment; and is known in commerce under the name of "pearl sago." Thus the labor of fifteen or twenty men is required to do that which, with the aid of simple machinery, might be done much better by three or four laborers. A water-wheel would both work a stirring machine and cause an inclined cylinder to revolve over a fire, for the purpose of drying the sago, in the manner used for corn, meal, and flour in America, or for roasting coffee and chicory in England. But the Chinese have no idea of subst.i.tuting artificial means, when manual ones are obtainable.

A considerable quant.i.ty of sago is exported from Singapore in the state of flour. The whole quant.i.ty made and exported there exceeds, on the average, 2,500 tons annually. The quant.i.ty s.h.i.+pped from this entrepot is shown by the annexed returns, nearly all of which was grown and manufactured in the settlement. The estimated value for export is set down at 14s. per picul of 1 cwt.

EXPORTS FROM SINGAPORE.

Piculs 1840-41 Pearl sago 41,146 " Sago flour 33,552 1841-42 Pearl sago 46,225 " Sago flour 7,447 1842-43 Pearl sago 25,306 " Sago flour 4,838 1843-44 Pearl sago 14,266 " Sago flour 14,067 1844-45 Pearl sago 18,472 " Sago flour 36,141 1845-46 Pearl sago 19,333 " Sago flour 26,925 1846-47 Pearl sago 40,765 " Sago flour 9,025

Imports of sago into the United Kingdom, and quant.i.ty retained for home consumption:--

Imports. Home consumption.

Cwts. Cwts.

1826 9,644 2,565 1830 2,677 3,385 1834 25,763 13,827 1838 18,627 28,396 1842 45,646 50,994 1846 38,595 45,671 1848 65,000 1849 83,711 72,741 1850 89,884 83,954

THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE.

_Artocarpus incisa_.--This tree is less cultivated than would be supposed from its useful properties. In the West Indies and the Indian Islands, where it has been introduced from its native place, the South Sea Islands, it is held in very little consideration, the graminea, tuberous roots, and farinaceous plants being more easily and readily cultivated. There are two or three varieties known in the Asiatic regions. The properties of this tree are thus enumerated by Hooker:--The fruit serves for food; clothes are made from the fibres of the inner bark; the wood is used for building houses and making boats; the male catkins are employed as tinder; the leaves for table cloths and for wrapping provisions in; and the viscid milky juice affords birdlime.

_A. integrifolia_is the Jack or Jacca, the fruit of which attains a large size, sometimes weighing 30 lbs., but is inferior in quality to the bread-fruit.

The nuts or fruit of _Brosimum Alicastrum_, an evergreen shrub, native of Jamaica, are nutritious and agreeable articles of food. When boiled with salt fish, pork or beef, they have frequently been the support of the negroes and poorer sorts of white people in times of scarcity, and proved a wholesome and not unpleasant food; when roasted it eats something like our common chesnut, and is called bread-nut.

_Kafir Bread_.--According to Thunberg, the Hottentots being very little acquainted with agriculture, or with the use of the cerealia, and subsisting princ.i.p.ally upon wild bulbs and fruits, obtain food also from _Encephalartos caffer_, a species of _Zamia_, with a cylindrical trunk, the thickness of a man's body, and about seven feet high. Having cut down a tree, they took out the pith, that nearly fills its trunk, and which abounds in mucilage and an amylaceous fluid; after keeping this for some time buried under ground in the skin of an animal, they reduced it by pounding and kneading into a kind of paste; and then baked it in hot ashes, in the form of round cakes, nearly an inch thick. The Dutch colonists, in consequence of this practice of the natives, called the plant brood-boon, which signifies literally bread tree.

THE PLANTAIN AND BANANA.

The several varieties of the edible plantain which are known and cultivated throughout the West Indies, Africa, and in the East are all reducible to two cla.s.ses, viz., the Plantain and the Banana (_Musa Paradisiaca_and _sapientum_). The difference between these two plants is even so slight as to be scarcely specific; it is therefore most probable that there was originally but one stock, from which they have, by cultivation and change of locality, been derived.

The tiger plantain (_M. maculata_) and the black ditto (_M.

sylvestris_) are cultivated in Jamaica. The whole of the species and varieties of the tribe are what are called polygamous monoecious plants, each individual tree bearing the male and female organs of reproduction.

The plantain and its varieties invariably bear male, female and hermaphrodite flowers within the same spathe, all of them being imperfect and consequently unproductive of seed. An individual may, even from excess of culture, moisture, &c., be entirely incapable of flowering. During the prevalence of a disease or blight among the plantain walks of Demerara in the years 1844 and 1845, it was seriously proposed to introduce male plantains, or obtain fresh stock by seed.

It is, therefore, necessary to determine with exactness, if possible, whether the Plantain or Banana, (whichever be the parent stock) exists anywhere at present, or has been known to have existed as a perfect plant, that is bearing fertile seeds; or, whether it has always existed in the imperfect state, that is, incapable of being procreated by seed, the only state in which it at present exists in our colonies.