The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom / Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

The ground in which this tree admits of being cultivated is that which is least adapted to the staple products of tropical agriculture; guinea grass may be profitably raised beneath its shade and as with the exception of the three years which precede the commencement of its bearing, there is hardly any deduction to be made from its returns, it promises to be among the most valuable objects of a planter's attention.

Jacquin describes the Cæsalpinia coriaria as a handsome branching tree, of about fifteen feet in stature, covered with a dark spotted bark. Its leaves are doubly pinnate, and the leaflets of twelve pair without a terminal one; they are oblong, obtuse, smooth, very entire. The flowers are disposed in spikes issuing from the extremities of the branches; they are small, yellowish, and slightly fragrant. To these succeed oblong, compressed, somewhat obtuse pods, curved laterally, the inner side being concave and the other convex. The seeds rarely exceed three or four in each pod, and are of a brownish color.

Divi-divi resembles a dried pea-shuck curled up, filled with yellow powder, and a few dark brown seeds. The price ranges from £8 to £13 per ton.

The imports into the United Kingdom in 1844, were 3,900 tons; in 1845 and 1846, about 1,400 tons each year; during the subsequent three years the imports were merely nominal, but in 1850 a renewed demand seems to have sprung up, for 2,770 tons were imported into Liverpool, and a few tons into London.

CORK-TREE BARK (Quercus suber) has been imported into Ireland to a considerable extent, frequently to the amount of 1,500 tons annually. The quantity of cork imported annually into the United Kingdom is about 3,000 tons. It is brought from Spain, Italy, and Barbary. Oak bark and valonia being very cheap and plentiful, the price of cork hark is only nominal, being, for Spanish cork-tree bark, £7 10s. to £8 per ton; Leghorn ditto, £6 to £7 per ton. It is less astringent than oak bark, and is more generally useful for stoppers of bottles and bungs for casks. 160 tons of cork-tree bark were imported into Liverpool from Rabat in 1849, and 150 tons in 1850.

1,867 cwts. of bark for tanning were imported from Chili in 1844, of which 292 were Quillai bark.

MIMOSA BARK.—The bark of the Mimosa decurrens, which abounds in Australia and Van Diemen's Land, is found to be a very powerful tanning agent.

The first shipment of tannin was made from Sydney to England as far back as 1823, in the shape of an extract of the bark of two species of mimosa, which was readily purchased by the tanners at the rate of £50 per ton. One ton of bark had produced four cwts. of extract of the consistency of tar.

The imports of mimosa bark have only been to a limited extent within the last few years, reaching 350 tons in 1850, against 110 tons in 1849, 230 tons in 1848, and 600 tons in 1847. The prices realised were £10 to £11 for chopped, £12 to £12 10s. for ground, and £8 to £9 per ton for unchopped bark. Whilst the imports were 3,900 tons in 1814, they dwindled to less than 400 tons in 1850.

From an experiment, conducted by Professor Brandt, the strength of the mimosa bark, as compared with that of young English oak bark, is found to be in the proportion of 57 to 39, so that the mimosa bark is half as strong again as the best English bark.

Mr. Samuel Mossman, in a communication to the Botanic Society of Edinburgh, in 1851, stated that the bark of A. dealbata pays to ship to England, notwithstanding the distance, from the fact of its containing a greater per centage of tannin than any other bark. It is a handsome tree, from fifteen to thirty feet high, forming luxuriant groves on the banks of streams, most abundant in Port Phillip and Twofold Bay, between the parallels of latitude 34 and 30 degrees.

New Zealand is rich in barks and dyes. The bark of the Tanahaka (Phyllodadus trichomanoides, of Don) is used by the natives as a red dye for the ornamental parts of their kaitahas, their best border garments. There is also another red dye, called Tawaivwai, the bark of which is very profuse. A black dye is procured from the hinau. They are of a rich hue, and exceedingly fast colors. The barks are to be found all over the colony. The hinau and tanahaka are employed in tanning, all the leather used in the colony being tanned either at the Bay of Islands or Port Nicholson.

The bark of the Rimu or red pine (Dacrydium Cupressinum, of Solander), a very common tree, possesses tanning qualities far superior to any of the Australian barks. One pound of the bark yields 85 grains of extract.

The native tanning barks of New Zealand are various and easily obtained. Specimens of the bark and dye, &c., of most of these trees were sent home to the Great Exhibition. One pound of the Tanahaka bark is said to yield 63 grains of tannin. The sails of boats are dyed with it to preserve them. The Towai (Licospermum racemosum, of Don, Weinmaunia racemosa, Decandole), is supposed to be valuable for the purposes of the tanner, and is said to yield 104 grains of tannin for every pound of bark. The bark of the Pohutu kawa of the natives, the Metrosideros tomentosaof Richard, and Callistemon ellipticum of Allan Cunningham, would also be useful for tanning, one pound of it furnishing about 60 grains of tannin.

The black mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) is a tree attaining an altitude of from 30 to 50 feet, and occupying marshy situations in the vicinity of the sea. Almost every part of the mangrove—the bark, roots, and the fruit more particularly—abounds in an astringent principle, which is successfully applied to the purposes of tanning. As the tree is so abundant within the tropics, it might be worth the while of some practical speculator to make an extract on the spot, and introduce it into the English market, for the use of tanners and dyers. For tanning, the mangrove is said to be infinitely superior to oak bark, completing in six weeks an operation which with the latter occupies at least six months, and the sole-leather so tanned is said to be more durable than any other. The bark and leaves, which contain nearly as much tannin as the oak, are made use of in the West Indies, as well as in Scinde and other parts of Asia.

3,713 piculs of mangrove bark, valued at £819, were shipped from Shanghae, one of the Chinese ports, in 1849.

MYROBALANS.—This is a name applied to the almond-like kernels of a nut or dried fruit of the plum kind, of which there are several sorts known in the East. They are the produce of various species of Terminalia, as T. Bellerica, chebula, citrina, and angustifolia. They vary from the size of olives to that of gall nuts, and have a rough, bitter, and unpleasant taste. Many of the trees of this tribe, which are all natives of the tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and America, are used for tanning, and some for dyeing. They are highly valued by dyers, creating, when mixed with alum, a durable dark brown yellow. Myrobalans fetch in the Bombay market 8s. to 26s. the Surat candy of 821 lbs. The bark and leaves of T. Catappa yield a black pigment, with which Indian ink is made; the seeds are eaten like almonds. A milky juice is said to flow from T. angustifolia, which, when dried, is fragrant, and, resembling Benzoin, is used as a kind of incense in the Catholic churches in the Mauritius. The fruit of T. Bellerica, and of T. Chebula, both useful timber trees, indigenous to the East Indies, are used medicinally as a tonic and astringent. 117 cwts. of myrobalans were shipped from Ceylon in 1845.

The annual imports of myrobalans into Hull, amount to about 1,600 cwts. The quantity which arrived at Liverpool was 185 tons in 1849, 851 tons in 1850; 27,212 bags in 1851, and 19,946 bags in 1852; they come from Calcutta and Bombay, and are also used for dyeing yellow and black. The price in January, 1853, was 6s. to 12s. per cwt. The average annual imports into the United Kingdom may be taken at 1,200 tons.

The East Indian kino, imported from Bombay and Tellicherry, is the produce of Pterocarpus marsupium, a lofty, broad-spreading forest tree, which blossoms in October and November. The bark is of a greyish color, and is upwards of half an inch in thickness on the trunk. When cut, a blood-red juice speedily exudes and trickles down; it soon thickens, and becomes hard in the course of fifteen or sixteen hours. The gum is extracted in the season when the tree is in blossom, by making longitudinal incisions in the bark round the trunk, so as to let the gum ooze down a broad leaf, placed as a spout, into a receiver. When the receiver is filled it is removed. The gum is dried in the sun until it crumbles, and then filled in wooden boxes for exportation.

P. erinaceus, a tree 40 to 50 feet in height, a native of the woods of the Gambia and Senegal, furnishes kino, but none is collected in or exported from Africa. Butea frondosa, or the dhak tree of the East Indies, furnishes a similar product, in the shape of a milky, colored, brittle, and very astringent gum. Kino is used as a powerful astringent, and is administered in the form of powder and tincture. Some specimens of Butea kino, analysed by Prof. Solly, after the impurities had been separated, yielded 73¼ per cent. of tannin.

VALONIA is the commercial name of the cupula or cup of the acorn, produced by the Quercus ægilops and its varieties, the Balonia or Valonia oak, natives of the Levant, from whence, and the Morea, they form a very considerable article of export; containing abundance of tannin they are largely used by tanners. The tannin differs materially from that of nutgalls. The bark of Q. tinctorea, a native of North America, yields a yellow dye.

The quantity of valonia imported for home consumption, in 1836, was 80,511 cwts., of which Turkey furnished 58,724 cwts., and Italy and the Ionian islands 7,209 cwts. Of 163,983 cwts. imported in 1840, 143,095 cwts. were brought from Turkey, 15,195 cwts. from Italy, and the residue from Greece and the Ionian Islands. The entries for home consumption in the three years ending with 1842, amounted to about 8,200 tons a year. The increase since has been considerable, the imports having been, in 1848, 10,237 tons; in 1849, 16,671 tons; in 1850, 12,526 tons; in 1851, 10,639 tons; in 1852, 13,870 tons. We receive about 14,000 to 20,000 cwts. annually from Leghorn. The imports into the port of Hull are 3,900 cwts. per year.

The annual produce is sufficient to meet the wants of all Europe. It can be had in Turkey to any extent and at all periods. Many cargoes are sent to Dublin, and the German markets. A little valonia is exported from Manila, the shipments having been about 150 tons per annum.

Camata and Camatina are two varieties of very young valonias, which are found more valuable for some processes of tanning than the common kinds.

Extensive as has been the enumeration of the vegetable substances used in the various branches of art and manufacture which have formed the principal subjects of this section, it is probable that with the progress of knowledge, of scientific experiment, and of investigation into the properties of given commodities, the list will be indefinitely increased. What I have stated will suffice to give the reader an idea of the surprising variety of sources from which we receive the raw materials which enable us to perfect some of the most elegant processes of manufacturing skill and ingenuity, and will further afford some criterion—though, of course, not a perfect one—for estimating the relative importance of the tanning and dyeing substances.

OLEAGINOUS PLANTS, AND THOSE YIELDING FIXED OR ESSENTIAL OILS.

Few cultivators are probably aware of the great importance of oil to this country, and the number of purposes for which it is employed in the arts and manufactures. It is extensively used for candle and soap making, for burning in lamps, for diminishing friction in machinery of all kinds, and especially for locomotives—in wool-dressing, in the manufacture of paints and varnishes, as an article of food, for medicinal purposes, &c.

So important are vegetable oils deemed, that the Society of Arts, in its prize list for 1851, offered gold medals for the importation or introduction into this country of any new plants or trees from China, India, or elsewhere, producing oils or fatty substances, such as can be used as food, or are applicable to manufacturing purposes; and also to the person who shall manufacture and import the finest specimen of oil, not less than ten gallons, the produce of olives grown in any British colony in Africa or Australasia.

The time of burning of equal quantities of the following oils has been found to be—

FOREIGN VEGETABLE OILS IMPORTED.

Fixed oils are found in the cells and intercellular spaces of the fruit, leaves, and other parts of plants.

Some of these are drying oils, as linseed oil, from Linum usitatissimum; some are fat oils, as that from olives (fruit of Olea sativa or Europæa); whilst others are solid, as palm oil.

The solid oils or fats procured from plants are, butter of cacao, from Theobroma cacao; of cinnamon from Cinnamomum verum; of nutmeg, from Myristica moschata; of coco-nut, from Cocos nucifera; of laurel, from Laurus nobilis; of palm oil, from Elais guianiensis; Shea butter, from Bassia Parkii; Galam butter, or Ghee, from Bassia butyracea; and vegetable tallow, from Stillingia sebifera in China, from Vateria indica in Canara and China, and from Pentadesma butyracea in Sierra Leone, and from the almond. These oils contain a large amount of stearine, and are used as substitutes for fat. Some of them are imported in large quantities, and enter into the composition of soap, candles, &c.

Castor oil, from the seeds of Ricinus communis, differs from other fixed oils in its composition.

Decandolle states the following as the quantity of oil obtained from various seeds:—

The following table, quoted from Boussingault, shows the results of some experiments made by M. Grauzac, of Dagny:—

The foregoing are not all the seeds from which oil is extracted by the natives of the East. In addition to this there are cottonseed oil, used for their lamps. Castor oil and Argemone seed, similarly used. Oil obtained from the fruit of Melia Azadriachta, for medicine and lamps. Apricot oil in the Himalayas, sunflower oil, oil of cucumber-seed for cooking and lamps, oil of colocynth seed, a lamp oil.

The seeds of bastard saffron (Carthamus tinctorius) yield oil.

Mustard oil, the produce of various species of Sinapis, &c. Shanghae oil, from Brassica Chinensis. Illiepie oil, from Bassia longifolia, which is used for frying cakes, &c., in Madras; and Muohwa oil, from another species of the same genus in Bengal, B. latifolia. Oil is expressed from the seeds of Cæsalpina oleosperma, a native of the East. The neem tree seeds afford a very clear or bitter oil, used for burning.

Wood oil is a remarkable substance, obtained from several species of Dipterocarpus, by simply tapping the tree.

The horse-eyes and cacoons of Jamaica (Fevillea scandens) yield a considerable quantity of oil or fat, as white and hard as tallow. It has been employed for similar purposes on the Mosquito shores.

The seeds of the Argemone mexicana, and of the Sanguinaria canadensis, also contain a bland, nutritious, colorless, fixed oil. The mass from which the seed is expressed is found to be extremely nutritious to cattle.

The Camelina sativa is cultivated in Europe, for the extraction of an oil used only by the soap makers, and for lamps.

A solid oil, of a pale greenish color, a good deal resembling the oils of the Bassia in character, though rather harder, and approaching more in properties to myrtle wax, was shown at the Great Exhibition, from Singapore. It is supposed to be the produce of the tallow tree of Java, called locally "kawan," probably a species of Bassia. It is very easily bleached; indeed, by exposure to air and light, it becomes perfectly white; if not too costly, it promises to become a valuable oil.

According to Mr. Low, there are several varieties of solid oil commonly used in the Islands of the Archipelago, and obtained from the seeds of different species of Dipterocarpus.

An oil is produced from the inner shell of the cashew-nut (Anacardium occidentale var. indicum), in the East.

In Japan a kind of butter, called mijo, is obtained from a species of the Dolichos bean (Dolichos soya).

The kernel of the seeds of the tallow tree of China, Stillingia sebifera, an evergreen shrub, contains an oil, which, when expressed, consolidates through the cold to the consistence of tallow, and by boiling becomes as hard as bees' wax. The plant also yields a bland oil. A similar fatty product is obtained from a shrub in British Guiana, the Myristica (Virola) sebifera.

Oil is obtained in South America from the sand box tree (Hura crepitans), and from the Carapa guianensis.

A fatty oil is obtained in Demerara from the seeds of the butter tree, Pekea (?) Bassia butyrosa, and also from the Saouari (P. tuberculosa).

The fleshy seeds contained in the woody capsules of the Monkey pot (Lecythis Tabucajo), which derive their generic name from their similarity to an oil jar, are common in the West India Islands and South America, and yield a considerable quantity of oil.

The seeds of the plants of the cucumber family frequently supply a bland oil, which is used in the East as a lamp oil and for cooking. Among the vegetable oils imported into Ningpo, and other Chinese ports, from Shantong, Leatong, and Teisin, are oil of teuss, obtained from green and dried peas; black oil of the fruit of the tree kin (?) and oil from the pea of suchau.

The seeds of Spergula saliva, a large, smooth-seeded variety of the common cow spurrey, which is cultivated in Flanders as a pasture grass and green crop, afford, on expression, a good lamp oil.

A pale brownish yellow oil is obtained from the seeds of Carthamus tinctorius, in Bombay; the seeds contain about 28 per cent. of oil.

Excellent oil is expressed in various parts of India from the seeds of different species of Sinapis, especially from the black mustard seed. S. glauca, S. dichotorna, and S. juncea are extensively cultivated in the East for their oil. The Erysimum perfoliatum is cultivated in Japan for its oil-seeds.

A beautiful pale yellow oil is procured from the seeds of the angular-leaved physic nut, Jatropha curcas, a shrub which is often employed in the tropics as a fence for enclosures. It is used by the natives in medicine and as a lamp oil. About 700 tons of this oil was imported into Liverpool in 1850 from Lisbon, for the purpose of dressing cloth, burning, &c.

RAPE OIL.—The imports of rape oil, from Brassica napus, into Liverpool, are about 15 to 20 tuns annually.

Rape oil has been found to be better suited than any other oil for the lubrication of machinery, when properly purified from the mucilage, &c., which it contains in the raw state. Rape oil is now used extensively for locomotives, for marine engines, and also for burning in lamps. It is stated that a locomotive consumes between 90 and 100 gallons of oil yearly; and the annual consumption of oil by the London and North-Western Railway, for this purpose alone, is more than 40,000 gallons. The oil obtained from good English rape seed is purer and of superior quality to that from foreign or colonial seed; and as an acre of land yields nearly five quarters of seed, which is worth at present 50s. per quarter, it is a profitable crop.

Rape seed is now largely imported for expressing oil. The imports, which in 1847 were but 87,662 quarters, weighing 17,532 tons, had reached, in 1851, 107,029 quarters, weighing 21,606 tons. The price of new seed is £25 to £27 the last of ten quarters. The oil is £34 per tun.

The refuse cake, after the seed is crushed for oil, is in demand as food for cattle, being worth £4 the ton.

We imported in 1851, from Trance, 289 tuns of rapeseed oil, worth about £17,000, on which there was no duty levied.

There are exported annually from Hesse Darmstadt, 34,660 cwts. of poppy and rape oils.

The oil of the colza is much used in Europe, and highly prized. In France it has been adopted for all the purposes of lighthouses. In this country it has lately come into extensive domestic use, for burning in the French moderateur lamps, being retailed at from 3s. 4d. to 4s. the gallon.

DOMBA OIL.—The Poonay or Palang tree (Calophyllum Inophyllum), the Alexandrian laurel, is a beautiful evergreen, native of the East Indies, which flourishes luxuriantly on poor sandy soils, in fact where scarcely anything else will grow. The seeds or berries contain nearly 60 per cent. of a fragrant, fixed oil, which is used for burning as well as for medicinal purposes, being considered a cure for the itch. As commonly prepared it has a dark green color. It is perfectly fluid at common temperatures, but begins to gelatinise when cooled below 50 degrees.

It has been said to be indigenous in Florida, Peru, Brazil, and Surinam; but the plant may be grown on a light sandy soil, under a moderate heat, equal to that of Italy or the South of France. The class to which it belongs approaches to the pea tribe; but its remarkable difference to this, as to the pulse we know as a bean, is the circumstance of its introducing its fruit or pod—if we may so call it—into the earth, for the purpose of ripening its seed. The Arachis, or earth nut, has obtained its name from this operation. The flowers, leaves, and stems are produced in the ordinary manner we see in the pea tribe. When the yellow flower has withered and the seed fertilised, there is nothing left but the bare stem which had supported it. This stem, in which is the germ of the future fruit and pod, now grows rapidly in a curved manner, with a tendency to arrive shortly on the surface of the ground, into which it penetrates this now naked stem, and sinks into the earth several inches. It is in this obscure position that the fruit takes its ripened form, and is either gathered from its hiding place or left to the future season, when its time of rising into new existence calls it from what was thought its unnatural position.

When mature, it is of a pale yellow color, wrinkled, and forms an oblong pod, sometimes contracted in the middle; it contains generally two seeds. The nuts or peas are a valuable article of food in the tropical parts of Africa, America, and Asia. They are sweetish and almond-like, and yield an oil, when pressed, not inferior in use and quality to that obtained from the olive. The leaf resembles that of clover, and, like it, affords excellent food for cattle. The cake, after the oil is expressed, forms an excellent manure.

The Arachis is usually sown in dry, warm weather, from May to June, and are placed at the distance of eighteen inches from each other. Insects are fond of them; and if the season is cold and unfavorable to them, or the growth retarded, they become musty and bad, or are eaten by insects.

From China this plant was probably introduced into the continent of India, Ceylon, and the Malayan Archipelago, where it is generally cultivated.

In South Carolina the seed is roasted and used as chocolate. The leaves are used medicinally.

It is grown in Jamaica, and there called Pindar nut.

That the culture of the Arachis in warm climates, or even in a temperate one, under favorable circumstances, should be encouraged, there can be but one opinion. And when it is considered that its qualities are able to supersede that of the olive and the almond, which are but precarious in their crops—to which may be added, that as a plant it is greedily devoured in the green state by cattle—how much may it not serve to assist the new settler in regions of the world which have a climate suited to it.

It is known by various local names—such as mani manoti by the Spaniards, and has obtained also that of cacahuete in some countries. It has the additional term hypogea attached to it, which literally signifies subterranean. This is apt to mislead; for the plant grows above ground as other pulse, whereas only its seed and pericarp are inserted, after blooming, into the earth. Hence the better term hypocarpogea.

It appears to form an important article of cultivation along the whole of the west coast of Africa, and probably on the east coast, on several parts of which it was found by Loureiro ("Flor. Cochin," p. 430). It was doubtless carried from Africa to various parts of equinoctial America, for it is noticed in some of the early accounts of Peru and Brazil. 800 quarters of this nut were imported into Liverpool from the West Coast of Africa, in 1849, for expressing oil, and about half that quantity in 1850.

Eighty to 90 tuns of the expressed oil are now annually imported. The seeds contain about 44 per cent. of a clear pale yellow oil, which is largely used in India as food, and for lamps, particularly at Malwa and Bombay, &c. Two varieties are grown in Malacca, the white seed and the brown seed, and also in Java, in the vicinity of sugar plantations; the oil cake being used as manure. It is there known as katjang oil.

The oil cake affords, also, an excellent food for cattle.

The ground nut has of late become of considerable importance as an article of exportation, by English houses; yet more so by French houses at Ghent, Rouen, and Bordeaux; some of whom have contracted with the merchants of the African colonies for large quantities, sending shipping for the cargoes. One house alone contracted for 60,000 bushels in the years 1844 and 1845. This nut oil is so very useful to machinery that the naval steam cruisers on the coast have adopted it. A ground-nut oil factory exists in the colony of Sierra Leone; but from the want of steam power and proper machinery, and from bad management, together with the inferior attainments of the African artisan, when compared with the European mechanic, and their facilities in quantity or quality, there is abundant scope for improvement. The price in the colony is 4s. 6d. per gallon. It is capable of being refined so as to answer the purpose of a salad oil; the nut is prolific, and eaten by the natives and Europeans, boiled, roasted, or in its raw state; and frequently introduced at the table as we do the Spanish Barcelona nut at dessert. It grows in the rainy season, and is collected in the dry, and sold in the colony for one shilling to eighteen-pence per bushel, in goods and cash. Form of the nut, long, light shell, contains two kernels covered with a brown rind, when shelled white in appearance.

It is a low creeping plant, with yellow flowers; after they drop off, and the pods begin to form, they bury themselves in the earth, where they come to maturity. The pod is woody and dry, containing from one to three peas, or nuts, as they are called, hence the common names, ground-nut or pea-nut. They require to be parched in an oven before they are eaten, and form a chief article of food in many parts of Africa.

From a narrow strip of land, extending about 40 miles northerly from Wilmington (North Carolina), comes nearly the entire quantity of earth nuts (known as pea-nuts) grown in the United States for market. From that tract and immediate vicinity, 80,000 bushels have been carried to Wilmington market in one year.

The plant has somewhat the appearance of the dwarf garden-pea, though more bushy. It is cultivated in hills. The pea grows on tendrils, which put out from the plant and take root in the earth, where the nut is produced and ripened. The fruit is picked from the root by hand, and the vines are a favorite food for horses, mules, and cattle. From 30 to 80 bushels are produced on an acre. There are some planters who raise from 1,000 to 1,500 bushels a year.—("Hunt's Merchant's Magazine," vol. xv., p. 426.)