Fig. 93.—Branch of the Cactus, with Cochineal Insects on.
M. Loze, surgeon in the navy, undertook to introduce the insect again, and, with M. Hardy, director of the central garden of Algiers, gave himself up, with great intelligence, to the naturalisation and rearing of the cochineal in Algeria.
In 1847 the French Minister of War, for the purpose of having the value of the Algerian cochineal fixed by commerce, caused to be sold publicly on the market-place of Marseilles a case of cochineal, the produce of the harvests of 1845 and 1846, from the experimental garden of Algiers, and which contained 17 kilogrammes of this commodity. Since that time the cultivation of this insect, the beginning of which was due to M. Limonnet, has rapidly developed. In 1853, in the province of Algiers alone, there were fourteen nopaleries, or cactus gardens, containing 61,500 plants. The Government at that time bought the harvests for fifteen francs the kilogramme.
We have only pointed out in a general way how the cochineal harvest is conducted. We will now enter into some details on the subject. These insects are gathered when the females are about to lay, that is, when a few young are hatched. It is when the females are pregnant that they contain the greatest amount of colouring matter. When the harvest time has arrived, the rearers stretch out on the ground pieces of linen at the foot of the plants, and detach the cochineals from them, brushing the plants with a rather hard brush, or scraping them off with the blade of a blunt knife.
If the season is favourable, the operation may be repeated three times in the course of a year in the same plantation. The insects thus collected are killed, by dipping into boiling water, by being put into an oven, or by being placed on a plate of hot iron. The cochineals, when withdrawn from the boiling water, are placed upon drainers, first in the sun, then in the shade, then in an airy place. During their immersion in water they lose the white powder which covers them. In this state they are called in Mexico ronagridas. Those which have passed through the oven they call jaspeadas, and are of an ashy grey; those that are torrefied are black, and are called negras. In commerce three sorts of cochineal are recognised; first, the mastique (mestèque), of a reddish colour, with a more or less abundant glaucous powder; secondly, the noire, which is large and of a blackish brown; thirdly, the sylvestre, which is, on the contrary, smaller and reddish. The latter is the least esteemed, and is gathered on wild cacti.
Each year there are imported into France 200,000 kilogrammes of cochineals, which represents a value of about three millions of francs. Every one knows that it is from cochineal that carmine is made, a magnificent red frequently employed by painters. Lake carmine is another product obtained from the cochineal. And, lastly, scarlet is the powder of the cochineal precipitated by a salt of tin.
Before the Mexican cochineal was known in Europe, the kermes, or Coccus ilicis, known still in commerce and by chemists under the names of Animal kermes, Vegetable kermes, and Scarlet seed, was used for the preparation of the carmine employed in the arts. This cochineal lives by preference (at least, so it is supposed) on the evergreen oak (Quercus ilex), whence its specific name.
The Coccus ilicis develops itself almost exclusively, not on the evergreen oak, but on the Quercus coccifera, or kermes oak, a shrub common in dry arid places on the Continent, and which vegetates on a great number of spots in the Mediterranean, particularly on the garrigues, or waste land, of Herault.