The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,257 pages of information about The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom.

The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,257 pages of information about The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom.

Mr. S. Berger, of Bromley, also received a prize medal.  He adopts a different mode of preparation.  In place of employing a dilute solution of caustic potash to dissolve the gluten and other insoluble matters of the grain, Mr. Berger uses a solution of carbonate of soda, containing half a pound to the gallon.  The rice is steeped, in cold water for 48 hours, levigated in a suitable mill, and the pulp thus formed is treated with the solution of carbonate of soda for 60 or 70 hours, being repeatedly stirred; it is then allowed to settle for some hours, the alkaline liquor is drawn off, and the starch is washed and purified.  This process was patented by Mr. Berger, in December, 1841.  A third process was patented in February, 1842, by Mr. J. Colman; he uses dilute muriatic acid for the same purpose as Messrs Jones and Berger.

ARROWROOT, EAST AND WEST INDIAN.

The genuine arrowroot of commerce is the produce of the tuberous rhizomata of Maranta arundinacea, a native of South America, and M. indica, indigenous to the West Indies, but also cultivated in the East.  The best West Indian arrowroot comes from Bermuda.  Its globules are much smaller and less glistening than those of Tous-les-mois, or potato starch.

The peculiar characteristics of the starch obtained from various plants has been particularised and described already in the elaborate investigation of the commercial yield and value of the starch-producing plants.  Amylaceous matter of a similar kind to arrowroot is obtained from other species of Maranta, as from some species of Canna, well known under the popular name of Indian shot, from the similarity of their round black seeds.

The arrowroot plant (M. arundinacea) is a perennial, its root is fleshy and creeping, and very full of knots and numerous long white fibres.  Arising from the root are many leaves, spear-shaped, smooth on the upper surface and hairy beneath.  The length of the leaf is about six or seven inches, and the breadth about three towards their base, the color and consistence resembling those of the seed.  From the root arise slender petioles upon which the leaves stand, and several herbaceous erect stalks come out between them, rising to the height of about two feet.  A loose bunch of small white flowers is succeeded by three-cornered capsules, each containing one hard rough seed.

The propagation and culture of this plant are of the simplest kinds.  The roots should be parted, and the most suitable soil is a rich loam.

In the Bermudas, a deep rich soil, or one in which marsh or peat prevail, is alone adapted for growing arrowroot in perfection.

A correspondent from the Bermudas, (where arrowroot forms the great staple crop of the islands), informs me that he ploughed up a small piece of land, twenty rods (or the eighth part of an acre), with a small plough and one horse.  He ploughed it over three times, and the third time planted the arrowroot as he ploughed it.  The land had not been turned up before for twenty years.

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The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.