The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 91

Many samples of tobacco grown in the colony have been p.r.o.nounced by competent judges equal to Virginian, but a very considerable prejudice exists against it. There is, however, no doubt that the dealers dispose of a great deal as American tobacco, and get a best price for it. The reduction of the import duties on foreign tobacco, recently made by the Legislative Council, will probably r.e.t.a.r.d the progress of the colonial production and manufacture of this article; but with an abundance of labor there is no question that this branch of industry will be again profitably resorted to. The quant.i.ty of tobacco manufactured in New South Wales, in 1847, was 1,321 cwt.; in 1848, 714 cwt.; in 1849, 2,758 cwt.; in 1850, 3,833 cwt.; in 1851, 4,841 cwt.

A correspondent of the _Adelaide Observer_ recommends its culture in South Australia, and supplies the following useful information:--

Without entering into botanical details, I will simply state that the plant is of a shrubby nature, about five feet high, and ought not to be planted nearer than four feet from each other, in rows five feet apart--thus allowing for each plant a s.p.a.ce of ground four feet by five, or 20 square feet. An acre will consequently furnish sufficient room for 2,178 plants.

The tobacco plant will thrive in almost any climate, from the torrid zone to the temperature of Great Britain. It luxuriates in rich alluvial valleys, where the soil is either of a _loamy_ or a _peaty_ nature.

Maiden soil is not recommended. The ground should be trenched, worked as fine as possible, and well manured. Tobacco will not answer unless the subsoil is thoroughly broken. The best manure is that obtained from the bullock-yard, and bark from the tan yard; and by two or three ploughings the earth can be brought to a proper consistency, and fit for the reception of the plants.

The usual method adopted in New South Wales, is to raise the plants in a warm, sheltered bed, neither exposed to wind nor to the sun's rays; but if the weather is dry, they should be well watered night and morning. The time of sowing is the end of August or the beginning of September in the lat.i.tude of Sydney, according to the state of the weather; and they may be transplanted when they have attained their sixth leaf, which is generally about a month or five weeks after they are up.

The period is rather later in this colony, and care should be taken that the plants have gained sufficient strength in the ground after transplanting to withstand the effect of the hot winds, and, if practicable, the aspect should be either N.E. or N.W., and the rows should incline towards either of these points.

The most suitable spots in this colony for the cultivation of tobacco, are Lyndoch Valley and the districts round the town of Willunga and Morphett Vale.

The greatest care is required from the cultivator to prevent the destruction of the plant from its greatest enemy, the black grub.

Daily search should be made for it, and not a plant should be left unexamined; they make their appearance about the beginning of November, when the plants have scarcely had time to take root. The soil between the rows should be kept constantly stirred with a three-p.r.o.nged fork, that air and the sun's rays may be admitted, which latter are as indispensable to the growing plant as injurious to the seedling. The labor is great, and from first to last requires the constant attention of one man throughout the year, with an additional hand for about six weeks during the process of curing.

The profits even in bad seasons are considerable; but when the season and soil are favorable, they average upwards of 100 per cent.

The consumption of tobacco is great in this colony, not only for personal use, but for sheep-wash; and the profits may be considerably greater for the lower leaves, which, owing to their gritty nature, cannot be manufactured, but may be advantageously cured for wash.

It is not my office to argue the point as to the advantages which may accrue from a free trade in tobacco; but this I know, and confidently a.s.sert it, from actual experiments made in this province, that a more lucrative article cannot be grown.

The consumption in South America, in 1850, was 147,178 lbs.; and the annual increase since 1840 has been a higher percentage than the increase of population, chiefly owing to extension in sheep-farming.

The probable expense of cultivation per acre may be as under:--

s. d.

Rent 0 10 0 Labor, 12 months 52 0 0 Ditto, 2 months 8 10 0 Ploughing three times 2 2 0 Harrowing twice 1 0 0 Manure, say 2 10 0 Seed, say 0 10 0 ---------- 67 2 0

The Sydney average quant.i.ty is said to be 11-1/3 cwt. per acre, say 10 cwt.; and the cost price per lb. will be 14d., or 6 15s.

4d. per cwt. The profit will at once be seen on this article of consumption.

Miscellaneous Drugs.--The blood tree (_Croton gossypifolia_), an evergreen shrub, native of the Trinidad mountains, is remarkable for yielding, when wounded, a thick juice resembling blood in color, which is one of the most powerful astringents I know of, and as such would be valuable to medical science. The bark of _Croton Cascarilla_ is, as we have seen in a former section, aromatic, and the seeds of _C.

Tiglium_, the physic nut, are purgative; so are those of the purging nut (_Jatropha multifida_), and another species (_J. gossypifolia_).

The pods of cow-itch (_Mucuna pruriens_) act as a vermifuge; the roots of the _Ruellia tuberosa_, or manyroot, and the bulbs of the white lily (_Pancratium Carribaeum_ and _maritimum_), are emetic. The Indian root or b.a.s.t.a.r.d ipecacuan (_Asclepias cura.s.savica_) has medicinal properties. _A. tuberosa_ is used as a mild cathartic, and a remedy for a variety of disorders. _Hydrastis canadensis_, or Canadian yellow root, is a valuable bitter, and furnishes a useful yellow dye.

_Knowltonia vesicatoria_ is used commonly as a blister in the Cape Colony. _Ranunculus saleratus_ (the _R. indicus_ of Roxburgh, and _B.

camosus_ of Wallich), common in India, is also used by the natives for blistering purposes.

A kind of sedge rush, common in swampy places in the West India islands, the _Adme cyperus_, enjoys a reputation for the cure of yellow fever. It is also stated to be cordial, diuretic and cephalic, serviceable in the first stages of the dropsy, good in vomitings, fluxes, &c.

Dr. Impey, the residentiary surgeon of Malwa, has just confidence in the indigenous drugs in use by the natives of the East, many of which are quite unknown in European practice. He believes that, in the Indian bazaars and the jungle, drugs having precisely the same effect as those of Europe may be discovered, and has recently drawn up a list of ninety substances, which are perfect subst.i.tutes for an equal number of European medicines. The cla.s.s of tonics, in particular, is most amply supplied, and the Englishman is not the only animal who suffers from disorders of the digestive organs.

My friend Dr. Hamilton, of Plymouth, recently brought under the notice of the profession the medical properties of the p.r.i.c.kly poppy or Mexican thistle (_Argemone Mexicana_). It is indigenous to and grows wild in the greatest profusion throughout the whole of the Caribbean islands, and may be found at every season of the year covered with its bright golden blossoms, and bearing its p.r.i.c.kly capsules in all their several stages of maturity. It is an annual plant, attaining a height of about two feet, growing abundantly in low and hot uncultivated spots. Its stem is round and p.r.i.c.kly, furnished with alternate branches and th.o.r.n.y leaves. The seeds possess an emetic quality. The whole plant abounds in a yellow milky juice, resembling gamboge in color, and not improbably possessing properties similar to the seeds.

In Nevis the oil is obtained from the bruised seeds by boiling, and sold by the negroes in small phials, containing about an ounce each, under the name of "thistle oil," at the price of a quarter of a dollar each. The usual dose for dry bellyache is thirty drops upon a lump of sugar, and its effect is perfectly magical, relieving the pain instantaneously, throwing the patient into a profound and refreshing sleep, and in a few hours relieving the bowels gently of the contents.

This oil seems fitted to compete in utility with the far more costly and less agreeable oil of the croton.

The seeds of the sandbox (_Hura crepitans_) when bruised, operate powerfully as emetico-cathartic. It is probable that an oil might be obtained from them similar in its operation to the thistle oil.

A cucurbitaceous fruit, one of the Luffas (called by Von Martius _Luffa purgans_), a tribe closely allied to the colocynth and mornordicas, growing in South America, is a powerful purgative, and is used in the province of Pernambuco, where it is called Cabacinha. The fruit is about the size of a small pear and resembles the wild cuc.u.mber. An infusion of a fourth part of one of these fruits is administered chiefly in the form of an injection.

Another species (_Luffa drastica_, of Martius) is also employed for the same purpose.

The _Luffa purgans_ grows spontaneously in the suburbs of Recieffe, the capital of the province of Pernambuco, and flowers in November and December. The fruit is a drastic purgative, and an infusion of it is used either internally or in the form of clyster. The tincture is prepared by macerating, for twenty-eight hours or more, four of the fruit deprived of the seeds in a bottle of spirit 21 degrees. The dose is three or four ounces daily, which occasions much sickness.

Poisons.--The vegetable kingdom (observes Mr. Simple), to which man is largely indebted for the materials of food, clothing, and shelter, produces also some of the most deadly poisons with which science, experience, or accident, has made him acquainted. In examining the poisonous productions of the vegetable kingdom, we find that their properties are generally due to the presence of some acid or alkali contained in the plant from which they are derived. Oil of bitter almonds and cherry laurel water are poisonous in consequence of containing prussic acid. Opium owes its activity to the alkaloid morphia. The Upas-tiente derives its energetic powers from the alkaloid strychnia; conia is the active principle of hemlock; veratria of h.e.l.lebore; aconita of monk's hood; and although there are several poisonous plants in which the active principle has not yet been detected, there can be little doubt that such a principle exists, although it has. .h.i.therto eluded the researches of the chemist.--("Pharmaceutical Journal," vol. 2, p. 17.)

The bark taken from the roots of the Jamaica dogwood (_Piscidia erythrina_), which is extensively distributed throughout the Archipelago of the Antilles, is used for stupefying fish. The pounded root is mixed with slaked lime and the low wines or lees of the distillery, and the mixture is put into small baskets or sacks, and so suffered to wash out gradually, coloring the water to a reddish hue.

The fish rise to the surface in a few minutes, when they float as if dead.

The expressed juice of the root of _Maranta Arundinacea_ is stated to be a valuable antidote to some vegetable poisons, and also serviceable in cases of bites or stings of venomous insects or reptiles. One of the most popular remedies for the bites of snakes is a decoction of the leaves of the Guaco, or snake plant, of South America, a species of willow which flourishes along the banks of the streams in the sultry regions shaded by other trees. It is said to be both a preventive and cure.

Mr. Edward Otto, writing from Cuba to the "Gardener's Magazine" for May, 1842, p. 286, describes the guaco as a tree growing from four to eight feet in height, with beautiful dark green leaves, having a brown tinge round the margin. The blossoms are small, of a bluish brown, and hang like loose bunches of grapes at the points of the shoots, or even on the stem itself, as it has seldom branches. The milky sap is said to have poisonous effects. "I was told (he adds) that this plant is used efficiently in cholera and yellow fever." This tree is said to be the _Camaeladia ilicifolia_ of Swartz, common in Antigua and Hayti, being known in Antigua by the popular name of the holly-leaved maiden plum.

ALOES.--The drug called aloes is the bitter, resinous, insp.i.s.sated juice of the leaves of various species of an arborescent plant of the lily family, with a developed stem and large succulent leaves, growing princ.i.p.ally in tropical and sub-tropical regions, and having a wide extent of range, being produced in Borneo and the East, Africa, Arabia, and the West Indies; many are also natives of the Cape of Good Hope. The plant will thrive in almost any soil, and, when once established, it is extremely difficult to eradicate.

The cultivation and manufacture are of the most simple kind. The usual mode of propagating the plants is by suckers; and all the care required is to keep them free from weeds.

From the high price which the best Barbados aloes fetches in the market, 7 per cwt., its culture might be profitably extended to many of the other islands. The aloes plant is indigenous to the soil of Jamaica, and although handled by thousands of the peasantry and others, there is not perhaps one in five thousand who understands its properties or the value of the plant. With the Jamaicans it is commonly used in fever cases, by slicing the leaves, permitting the juice to escape partially, and then applying them to the head with bandages;--this is the only generally known property which it possesses there.

A series of trials made recently in Paris proved that cordage manufactured from the fibre of this plant grown in Algiers, was far preferable in comparative strength to that manufactured from hemp.

Cables, of equal size, showed that that made of the aloe raised a weight of one-fifth more than that of hemp.

The drug is imported into this country under the names of Socotrine, East Indian or Hepatic, Barbados, Cape and Caballine aloes. It contains a substance called Aloetine, which some regard as its active principle. The various species now defined are--_Aloe spicata_, _vulgaris_, _Socotrina_, _Indica_, _rubescens_, _Arabica_, _linguae-formis_ and _Commelina_. The average imports in 1841 and 1842 were only about 170,780 cwts.; it is now much larger, and a great portion of the supply is drawn from the Cape colony.

The mode of preparing the drug, which I have myself seen in the West Indies, is exceedingly simple. When the plant has arrived at proper maturity, the laborers go into the field with tubs and knives, and cut the largest and most succulent leaves close to the stalk; these are placed upright in the tubs, side by side, so that the sap may flow out of the wound. Sometimes a longitudinal incision is made from top to bottom of the leaf, to facilitate the discharge. The crude juice thus obtained is placed in shallow flat-bottomed receivers, and exposed to the sun until it has acquired sufficient consistency to be packed in gourds for exportation. In preparing the coa.r.s.er kind, or horse aloes, the leaves are cut into junks and thrown into the tubs, there to lie till the juice is pretty well drained out; they are then squeezed by the hand, and water, in the proportion of one quart to ten of juice, is added, after which it is boiled to a due consistence and emptied into large shallow coolers.

The following a.n.a.lysis by M. Edmond Robiquet of a specimen of Socotrine aloes, obtained from M. Chevallier, is given in the sixth volume of the "Pharmaceutical Journal," p. 277. The const.i.tuents in 100 parts were:--

Pure aloes (Aloetine) 85.00 Ulmate of potash 2.00 Sulphate of lime 2.00 Carbonate of potash } -------------lime } traces.

Phosphate of lime } Gallic acid .25 Alb.u.men 8.

The true Socotrine aloes is the produce of _A. Socotrina_, which grows abundantly in the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean. Lieutenant Wellstead says, the hills on the west side of the island are covered for an extent of miles with aloe plants. The aloe grows spontaneously on the limestone mountains of Socotra, from 500 to 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. The produce is brought to Tamarida and Colliseah, the princ.i.p.al town and harbor for exports. In 1833, the best quality sold for 2s. a pound, while for the more indifferent the price was 13d. The value is much impaired by the careless manner in which the aloes is gathered and packed. Aloes once formed the staple of its traffic, for which it was chiefly resorted to; but only small quant.i.ties are now exported. It was formerly shipped by the way of Smyrna and Alexandria, but is usually now brought by the way of Bombay; Melinda, on the Zanzibar coast, and Maccula on the Arabian sh.o.r.e, furnish the greater part of that sold in Europe as Socotrine aloes. It comes home in chests or packages of 150 to 200 lbs. wrapt in skins of the gazelle, sometimes in casks holding half a ton or more.

It is somewhat transparent, of a garnet or yellowish red color. The smell is not very unpleasant, approaching to myrrh. Socotrine aloes, although long considered the best kind, is now below Barbados aloes in commercial value.

About two tons were imported from Socotra in 1833, but a much larger quant.i.ty could be obtained if required.

The price of Socotrine aloes in the Liverpool market, in the early part of 1853, was 30s. to 6 the cwt.; of Cape, 30s. to 32s.

_East Indian_, or _Hepatic aloes_.-- The real hepatic aloes, so called from its liver color, is believed to be the produce of _A. Arabica_, or _perfoliala_, which grows in Yemen in Arabia, from whence it is exported by the way of Bombay to Europe. According to Dr. Thomson and the "Materia Medica," it is duller in its color than the other kinds, is bitterer, and has a less pleasant aroma than the Socotrine aloes.

It should not be liquid, which deteriorates the quality.