The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 92

_A. Indica_--a species with reddish flowers, common in dry situations, in the north-west provinces of India, is that from which an inferior sort of the drug is produced. It is obtained in Guzerat, Salem, and Trichinopoly, and fetches a local price of 2d. to 3d. a pound. In the Bombay market, Socotrine aloes fetches wholesale 16s. to 20s. the Surat maund of 41 lbs., and Maccula aloes only 9s.

_Barbados aloes_, is the produce of _A. vulgaris_, or _A.

barbadensis_, a native of the Cape colony, and is often pa.s.sed off for the Hepatic. It is brought home in calabashes, or large gourd sh.e.l.ls, containing from 60 to 70 lbs. each, or more. It is duskier in hue than the East Indian species, being a darkish brown or black, and the taste is more nauseous and intensely bitter.

In 1786 one hogshead and 409 gourds of aloes were exported from Barbados. In 1827, there were about 96,000 packages shipped from the island. In 1844, there were 4,600 packages exported. The exports have fallen off considerably, only about 850 gourds having been shipped in the season of 1849-50; but in 1851 it increased to 2,505 gourds.

_Caballine_, or _Horse-aloes_, is the coa.r.s.est species or refuse of the Barbados aloes, and from its rank fetid smell is only useful for veterinary medicine. It is also obtained from Spain and Senegal.

A very good description of the mode of cultivating and preparing the aloes in Barbados is given in the 8th vol. of the "London Medical Journal":--

The lands in the vicinity of the sea, that is from two to three miles, which are rather subject to drought than otherwise, and are so strong and shallow as not to admit of the planting of sugar-canes with any prospect of success, are generally found to answer best for the aloe-plant. The stones, at least the larger ones, are first picked up, and either packed in heaps upon the most shallow barren spots, or laid round the field as a dry wall. The land is then lightly ploughed and very carefully cleared of all noxious weeds, lined at one foot distance from row to row, and the young plants set like cabbages, at about five or six inches from each other. This regular mode of lining and setting the plants is practised only by the most exact planters, in order to facilitate the frequent weeding by hand; because if the ground be not kept perfectly clean and free from weeds, the produce will be very small. Aloes will bear being planted in any season of the year, even in the dryest, as they will live on the surface of the earth for many weeks without a drop of rain. The most general time of planting them, however, is from April to June.

In the March following, the laborers carry a parcel of tubs and jars into the field, and each takes a slip or breadth of it, and begins by laying hold of a bunch of the blades, as much as he can conveniently grasp with one hand, whilst with the other he cuts it just above the surface of the earth as quickly as possible (that the juice may not be wasted), and then places the branches in the tub bunch by bunch or handful by handful. When the first tub is thus packed quite full, a second is begun (each laborer having two); and by the time the second is filled, all the juice is generally drained out of the blades in the first tub. The blades are then lightly taken out and thrown over the land by way of manure, and the juice is poured out into a jar. The tub is then filled again with blades, and so alternately, till the laborer has produced his jar full, or about four gallons and a half of juice, which is often done in six or seven hours, and he has then the remainder of the day to himself, it being his employer's interest to get each day's operation as quickly done as possible. It may be observed that although aloes are often cut in nine, ten, or twelve months after being planted, they are not in perfection till the second or third year, and that they will be productive for a length of time, say ten or twelve years, or even for a longer time, if good dung or manure of any kind is stirred over the field once in three or four years, or oftener if convenient.

The aloe juice will keep for several weeks without injury. It is therefore not boiled till a sufficient quant.i.ty is procured to make it an object for the boiling house. In the large way, three boilers, or coppers are placed to one fire, though some have but two, and the small planters only one boiler. The boilers are filled with the juice, and as it ripens or becomes more insp.i.s.sated by a constant but regular fire, it is ladled from boiler to boiler, and fresh juice is added to that farthest from the fire, till the juice in that nearest the fire (by much the smallest of the three) becomes of a proper consistency, to be skipped or ladled out into gourds or other small vessels used for its final reception. The proper time to skip or ladle it out of the last boiler is when it has arrived at what is termed a resin height, or when it cuts freely or in thin flakes from the edges of a small wooden slice that is dipped from time to time into the boiler for that purpose. A little lime water is used by some aloe boilers during the process, when the ebullition is too great.

CAPE ALOES is the produce chiefly of _A. spicata_, and _A. Commelini_, which are found growing wild in great abundance in the interior of the Cape Colony. It has not the dark opaque appearance of the other species. About fifty miles from Cape Town is a mountainous tract, almost entirely covered with numerous species and varieties of the plant, and some of the extensive arid plains in the interior of the colony are crowded with it. The settlers go forth and pitch their waggous and campa on these spots to obtain the produce. The shipments from Table Bay and the eastern port of Algoa Bay are very considerable. The odor of the Cape aloes is stronger and more disagreeable than that of the Socotrine or Barbados, and the color is more like gamboge. It is brought over in chests and skins, the latter being preferred.

Mr. George Dunsterville, surgeon of Algoa Bay, gives the following description of the manufacture of Cape aloes:--

A shallow pit is dug, in which is spread a bullock's hide or sheep's skin. The leaves of the aloe plants in the immediate vicinity of this pit are stripped off and piled up on the skin to variable heights. These are left for a few days. The juice exudes from the leaves, and is received by the skin beneath. The Hottentot then collects in a basket or other convenient article the produce of many heaps, which is then put into an iron pot capable of holding eighteen or twenty gallons. Fire is applied to effect evaporation, during which the contents of the pot are constantly stirred to prevent burning. The cooled liquor is then poured into wooden cases of about three feet square by one foot deep, or into goat or sheep skins, and thus is filled for the market. In the colony aloes realises about 2 d. to 3 d. per pound. The Hottentots and Dutch boors employ indiscriminately different species of aloe in the preparation of the drug.

The Cape aloes, which _is_ usually prized the highest in the English market, is that made at the Missionary inst.i.tution of Bethelsdorp (a small village about nine miles from Algoa Bay, and chiefly inhabited by Hottentots and their missionary teachers). Its superiority arises not from the employment of a particular species of aloe, for all species are used, but from the greater care and attention paid to what is technically called the cooking of the aloes; that is, the evaporation, and to the absence of all adulterating substances (fragments of limestone, sand, earth, &c.), often introduced by manufacturers.

Mr. Moodie, in his "Ten Years' Residence in Southern Africa," gives a somewhat similar account.

Mr. Bunbury states that, about the neighbourhood of Graham's Town, three large kinds of aloe are very abundant, which form striking and characteristic features of the scenery; they grow irregularly scattered over the parched and naked faces of the hills, but most abundantly among the low broken ledges and knolls of sandstone rock, and are often seen spiring up above the evergreen bushes in the ravines, and crowning the cliffs. One kind grows to the height of a man. They are plants of a strange, rigid, and ungraceful appearance, but with very handsome flowers, which form tall and dense spikes, of a fine coral-red color in two of the species _(A. arborescens_ and _lineata?_), and of an orange scarlet in the third _(A.

glaucescens?_). When in blossom they are conspicuous at a great distance, and might easily be mistaken, when seen from far off, for soldiers in red uniforms.

The importance of this indigenous plant to the Cape Colony, may be estimated from the following figures:--

AMOUNT OF ALOES, THE PRODUCE OF THE COLONY, AND VALUE THEREOF, EXPORTED IN THE YEARS ENDING 5TH JANUARY 1841, 1842, AND 1846.

lbs 1841 485,574 8,821 1842 602,620 11,877 1846 266,725 3,018

EXPORTS AND VALUE FROM THE EASTERN PROVINCE.

lbs.

1835 68,042 474 1836 30,808 285 1837 13,400 115 1838 28,867 306 1839 75,500 918 1840 82,478 1,145 1841 220,214 4,271 1842 283,305 5,003 1844 318,035 3,225

EXPORTS AND VALUE FROM THE WESTERN PROVINCE.

lbs.

1841 242,860 4,175 1842 379,315 6,874 1844 506,796 6,586

ASAFOETIDA.---This drug of commerce is procured from the milky juice of _Ferula asafoetida_, a plant recently described by Dr. Falconer, under the name of _Narthex asafoetida_. It is found in Persia, the mountains of Chorasan, the central table land of Affghanistan, and some seeds of it, sent to this country by Dr. Falconer, germinated in the Botanical Garden at Edinburgh, and are now vigorous thriving plants of six years growth. Its leaves have a resemblance to those of a paeony; the fruit is distinguished by divided and interrupted vittae, which form a network on the surface. The perennial roots grow to a very large size, and are seldom of any use until after four or five years' growth. The asafoetida is procured by taking successive slices off the top of the root and collecting the milky juice., which is allowed to concrete into ma.s.ses of a fetid resinous gummy matter, with a sulphur oil, similar to that of garlic, which is probably its active ingredient.

An inferior sort is obtained from _F. persica_, another species with very much divided leaves, growing chiefly in the southern provinces of Persia. It comes over usually in casks and cases. The British consumption of the drug is about 10,000 lbs. a year. A little is procured from Scinde. In 1825 the quant.i.ty imported was 106,770 lbs., in 1839 only 24 cwts.

The wholesale price in the Liverpool market, in January 1853, was 1 to 3 10s. the cwt.

CAMPHOR.--The Camphor tree (_Camphora officinarum_, _Laurus Camphora_) is a native of China, j.a.pan, and Cochin China, of the laurel tribe, with black and purple veins. Camphor is procured from all parts of the tree, but it is obtained princ.i.p.ally from the wood by distillation, and subsequent sublimation.

Many plants, such as the cinnamon tree, supply a kind of camphor, but the common camphor of the shops is the produce chiefly of _C.

officinarum._

Two kinds of unrefined camphor are known in commerce.--1. The Dutch, which is brought from Batavia, and is said to be the produce of j.a.pan.

This is imported in tubs covered by matting and each surrounded by a second tub, secured on the outside by hoops of twisted cane. Each tub contains about one cwt. Most of this goes to the continent. 2.

Ordinary crude camphor is imported from Singapore and Bombay, in square chests lined with lead-foil, and containing 1 to 1 cwts. It is chiefly produced in the island of Formosa, and is brought by the Chin Chew junks in very large quant.i.ties to Canton, whence foreign markets get supplied.--("Pereira's Materia Medica.")

In the southern part of j.a.pan the tree grows in such abundance that, notwithstanding the great consumption of it in the country, large quant.i.ties are exported. Koempfer says, that the j.a.panese camphor is made by a simple decoction of the wood and roots, but bears no proportion in value to that of Borneo. There is also an imitation of camphor in j.a.pan, but every body can distinguish it from the genuine.

The camphor of Sumatra is procured from the stem of a large tree, _Dryobalanops Camphora_, Colebrook; _D. aromatica_, Graertner. It is secreted in crystalline ma.s.ses naturally into cavities of the wood. It supplies this camphor only after attaining a considerable age. In its young state it yields, however, by incision, a pale yellow liquid, called the liquid camphor of Borneo and Sumatra, which consists of resin and a volatile oil having a camphorated odor.

An account of this tree, and of the mode of procuring the peculiar and high-priced camphor which it yields, is given by Dr. Junghuhn, who has travelled lately in Sumatra, and Prof. De Vriese, of Leyden, in the "Nederlandsch Kruidkundig Archief" for 1851. An abstract of the memoir, translated into English by Miss De Vriese, is published in "Hooker's Journal of Botany " for February and March 1852:--

The Dryobalanops is a gigantic tree, rising for fifty or even a hundred feet above those which compose the chief ma.s.s of the forests where they grow, just as the steeples of the churches appear above the roofs of the houses in a town. The trunks of the full-grown trees are from 7 to 10 feet in diameter at the very base, and from 5 to 8 feet higher up; they rise to the height of 100 or 130 feet, and their ample crown is from 50 to 70 feet in diameter. The tree has a limited range, being confined to the seaward slope of the mountains of southwestern Sumatra, most abundant on the lower slopes and the outlying hills of the alluvial plain, and extending in lat.i.tude from 1deg. 10m. to 2deg. 20m. N., and perhaps further to the north.

Camphor oil occurs in all the trees, and is most abundant in the younger branches and leaves. The solid camphor is found only on the trunks of older trees, especially in fissures of the wood, and in smaller quant.i.ty than is generally supposed. Colebrooke, and authors who have copied from him, a.s.sert that camphor is found in the heart of the tree in such a quant.i.ty as to fill a cavity of the thickness of a man's arm, and that a single tree yields about eleven pounds.

The price of this camphor, which at Padang sells for about 340 dollars per hundred weight, suffices to show that the account is much exaggerated. The camphor occurs only in small fissures, from which the natives, having felled the trees and split up the wood, sc.r.a.pe it off with small splinters or with their nails. From the oldest and richest trees they rarely collect more than two ounces.

After a long stay in the woods, frequently of three months, during which they may fell a hundred trees, a party of thirty persons rarely bring away more than 15 or 20 pounds of solid camphor, worth from 200 to 250 dollars. The variety and price of this costly substance are enhanced by a custom which has immemorially prevailed among the Battas, of delaying the burial of every person who during his life had a claim to the t.i.tle of Rajah (of which each village has one) until some rice, sown on the day of his death, has sprung up, grown and borne fruit. The corpse, till then kept above ground among the living, is now, with these ears of rice, committed to the earth, like the grain six months before; and thus the hope is emblematically expressed that, as a new life arises from the seed, so another life shall begin for man after his death. During this time the corpse is kept in the house, enclosed in a coffin made of the hollowed trunk of a Durion, and the whole s.p.a.ce between the coffin and the body is filled with pounded camphor, for the purchase of which the family of the deceased Rajah frequently impoverish themselves. The camphor oil is collected by incisions at the base of the trunk, from which the clear balsamic juice is very slowly discharged.

In Sumatra the best camphor is obtained in a district called Barus, and all good camphor bears that local name. It appears that the tree is cut down to obtain the gum and that not in one tenth of the trees is it found. Barus camphor is getting scarce, as the tree must be destroyed before it is ascertained whether it is productive or not.

About 800 piculs are annually sent to China. The proportion between Malay and Chinese camphor is as eighteen to one; the former is more fragrant and not so pungent as the latter.

Nine hundred and eighty-three tubs of camphor were exported from Java in 1843; 625 bales were imported in 1843, the produce of the j.a.panese empire; and 559 piculs exported from Canton in 1844.

The price of unrefined camphor in the Liverpool market in July, 1853, was 4 to 4 10s. the cwt. There have been no imports there direct in the last two years.

Camphor (says Dr. Ure) is found in a great many plants and is secreted in parity by several laurels; it occurs combined with the essential oils of many of the _l.a.b.i.acae_; but it is extracted for manufacturing purposes only from the _Laurus Camphora_, which abounds in China and j.a.pan, as well as from a tree which grows in Sumatra and Borneo, called in the country _kapur barus_, from the name of the place where it is most common. The camphor exists, ready formed, in these vegetables between the wood and the bark; but it does not exude spontaneously. On cleaving the tree _Laurus Sumatrensis (Qy. Dryobalanops Camphora)_, ma.s.ses of camphor are found in the pith. The wood of the Laurus is cut into small pieces and put, with plenty of water, into large iron boilers, which are covered with an earthen capital or dome, lined within with rice straw. As the water boils, the camphor rises with the steam, and attaches itself as a sublimate to the stalks, under the form of granulations of a grey color. In this state it is picked off the straw and packed up for exportation to Europe."--(" Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures.")

The price of camphor at Canton in July, 1850, was from fourteen to fifteen dollars per picul.

Cinchona.--Peruvian or Jesuit's Bark--One of the most valuable and powerful astringents and tonics used in medicine, is the produce of several species of cinchona, natives of the Andes, from 11 north lat.i.tude to 20 south lat.i.tude, at elevations varying from 1,200 to 10,000 feet above the level of the sea, and in a dry rocky soil. There are at least twelve trees which are supposed to furnish the barks of commerce, and great obscurity prevails as to the species whence the various kinds of cinchona bark are derived. The names of yellow, red, and pale bark have been very vaguely applied, and are by no means well defined. Dr. Lindley mentions twenty-six varieties; of which twenty-one are well known. The barks are met with either in thick, large, flat pieces, or in thinner pieces, which curl inwards during drying, and are called quilled.

Quinine is one of the most important of the vegetable alkaline bitters. It was first discovered by Vauquelin, in 1811, and its preparation on a large scale pointed out by Pelletier and Caventon in 1820. It is obtained by boiling the yellow bark (_Cinchona_) in water and sulphuric acid, and then treating it with lime and alcohol, when the quinine is precipitated in the form of a white powder. Upwards of 120,000 ounces are made annually in Paris.

Cinchona, or the Peruvian bark, was gathered to the amount of two million dollars in one year recently, and the demand is constantly increasing.

Peruvian bark is cut in the eastern Provinces of Bolivia, skirting the river Paraguay, and now conveyed an immense distance by mules over a mountainous region to El Puerto, the only port of Bolivia on the Pacific. It is thence brought by Cape Horn to the cities of the United States and Europe. Now that Government has been successful in opening the South American rivers, this important article of commerce will be furnished in market by the Paraguay and La Plata rivers, at a much reduced price.

A species of bark from Colombia, known as Malambo or Matias bark, has been frequently administered by Dr. Alexander Ure as a subst.i.tute for cinchona with good effect. It offers the useful combination of a tonic and aromatic. It is supposed to be the produce of a species of _Drimys_. It is stated that in New Granada, and other districts of Central America, where the tree is indigenous, incisions are made in the bark, and there exudes an aromatic oil which sinks in water.

Cinchona bark contains two alkaloids, cinchonia and quina, to which its active properties are due; the former is best obtained from gray bark, the latter from yellow bark. In combination with these there exists an acid called kinic acid.

The imports of cinchona bark to this country are from 225,000 to 556,000 lbs. annually, and about 120,000 lbs. are retained for home consumption. It comes over in chests and serons, or ox-hides, varying from 90 to 200 lbs. We imported from France, in 1850, 489 cwt. of Peruvian bark, of the value of 6,840; and in 1851, 1,128 cwt., of the value of 15,787; also the following quant.i.ties of sulphate of quinine, on which there is a duty of 6d. and 3-10ths per ounce.

oz.

1848 3,856 5,898 1849 1,114 1,560 1850 8,976 12,566 1851 7,605 10,647