| 1 Plant | 2 Level of the Sea, to | 3 Mn. Temp. Deg. Min. | 4 Time Required | 5 No. of plants | 6 Years | 7 Average produce |
| Cacao (Theobroma Cacao) | 587 yds. | 81.17 46.00 | 6½ yrs | 1,156 | 40 | 1¼ lb per tree |
| Plantain (Musa Paradisiaca) | 630 yds. to 1077 | 81.17 46.00 40.61 | 9 mths. 9½ " 11 " | 3,613 | 30 | 50 plantains |
| Indian Corn (Zea Mays) | 1077 1260 to 1890 2880 | 81.17 40.61 36 to 37.80 25.20 to 27 | 90 days 110 " 120 " 180 " | 28,900 | Annual | 238 for every seed |
| Manioc or Cassava | 1077 1195 | 81.17 40.61 43.00 | 10 mths 12 " 120 days | 28,900 | Bicennial | One cassava weighing ¾ lb. and ¼ oz. starch |
| Coco nut (Cocos nucifera) | 630 | 81.17 46.00 | 5 yrs. 6 " | 452 | 60 | 4 bottles oil per tree |
| Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) | 630 1077 1980 | 81.17 46.00 40.61 33.30 | 150 days 170 " 180 " 225 " | 28,900 | Annual | ½ lb. dried to each 5 plants |
| Cotton (Gossypium) | 630 1077 1415 | 81.17 46.00 40.61 34.61 | 6½ mth 7 " 7½" 9 " | 28,900 | 3½ | ½ lb. nett per plant |
| Coffee (Coffea Arabica) | 230 630 1077 to 2250 2453 | 47 46 37.80 to 39.60 33.30 | 24 mths 25 " 28 " 36 " | 5,300 | 45 | 1½ lb. per tree |
| Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) | 630 1080 | 84.17 46.00 41.40 | 11 mths. 12 " 14 " | 28,900 | 5 | 10 percent sugar upon the weight of the raw cane |
| Indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) | 90 630 1077 | 48.60 46.00 40.61 | 2½ " 3 " 3½ " | 57,800 | 1½ | 70 plants produce 1 lb. coloring matter |
| Potato (Solanum tuberosum) | 1080 1980 2700 | 38.70 33.30 27.00 | 140 days 165 " 210 " | 116,600 | Annual | 4½ lb each plant |
| Wheat (Triticum æstivum) | 567 1170 2520 | 42.30 38.70 32.99 | 80 " 100 " 120 " | 57,800 | Annual | 37 for every seed planted |
The plantain bears at 1,529 yards, in a temperature of 61 deg. Fahrenheit, and requires fifteen months, but its cultivation is of little benefit in so high a latitude. It is the same with the cassava root. The cane at 1,160 altitude, in a temperature of 66 deg., gives no sugar; and indigo at 1,620 affords no coloring matter.
SECTION I.
DRIED LEAVES, SEEDS, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES USED IN THE PREPARATION OF POPULAR DIETETIC BEVERAGES.
No substances are so essentially necessary to mankind, or form such important articles of commerce, as those which we come first to consider, the dietetic products—cacao, coffee, tea, and sugar. The consumption of these in all civilized countries is immense, notwithstanding that in many they have been fettered with heavy fiscal duties. The investigation of the culture of the plants from which they are obtained, and the manufacture of the products, is a very curious object of research.
CACAO OR COCOA.
The chocolate nuts or seeds, termed cacao, are the fruit of species of Theobroma, an evergreen tree, native of the Western Continent. That commonly grown is T. cacao; but Lindley enumerates two other species, T. bicolor, a native of New Granada; and T. Guianensis, with yellow flowers, a native of Guiana. The seeds being nourishing and agreeable to most people, are kept in the majority of houses in America, as a part of the provisions of the family. By pressure they yield fatty oil, called butter of cacao. They also contain a crystalline principle analogous to caffeine, called theobromine. The common cacao of the shops consists generally of the roasted beans, and sometimes of the roasted integuments of the beans, ground to powder. The consumption of cacao in the United Kingdom is about three millions of pounds annually, yielding a revenue of £15,500. Few tropical products are more valuable or more useful as food to man than cacao. It is without any exception the cheapest food that we can conceive, and were it more generally employed, so that the berries should not be more than two, three, or, at most, six months old, from the time of gathering (for, if kept longer, they lose their nutritive properties), even a smaller quantity than that usually taken in a cup would suffice: in fact, cacao cannot be too new. The cacao beans lie in a fruit somewhat like a cucumber, about five inches long and three-and-a-half inches thick, which contains from twenty to thirty beans, arranged in five regular rows with partitions between, and which are surrounded with a rose-colored spongy substance, like that of water melons. There are fruits, however, so large as to contain from forty to fifty beans. Those grown in the West India islands, as well as Berbice and Demerara, are much smaller, and have only from six to fifteen; their development being less perfect than other parts of South America. After the maturation of the fruit, when their green colour has changed to a dark yellow, they are plucked, opened, their beans cleared of the marrowy substance, and spread out to dry in the air. In the West Indies they are immediately packed up for the market when they are dried; but in Caraccas they are subjected to a species of slight fermentation, by putting them into tubs or chests, covering them with boards or stones, and turning them over every morning to equalize the operation. They emit a good deal of moisture, and lose the natural bitterness and acrimony of their taste by this process, as well as some of their weight. Instead of wooden tubs, pits or trenches dug in the ground are sometimes had recourse to for curing the beans; an operation called earthing. They are, lastly, exposed to the sun and dried. According to Lampadius, the kernels of the West India cacao beans contain in 100 parts, besides water, 53.1 of fat or oil, 16.7 of an albuminous brown matter, which contains all the aroma of the bean; 10.91 of starch, 7¾ of gum or mucilage, 0.9 of lignine, and 2.01 of a reddish dye-stuff, somewhat akin to the pigment of cochineal. The husks form 12 per cent, of the weight of the beans. The fatty matter is of the consistence of tallow, white, of a mild agreeable taste, and not apt to turn rancid by keeping. It melts only at 112 degrees Fahr., and should, therefore, make tolerable candles. It is obtained by exposing the beans to strong pressure in canvas bags, after they have been steamed or soaked in boiling water for some time. From five to six ounces of butter may be thus obtained from a pound of cacao. It has a reddish tinge when first expressed, but it becomes white by boiling with water.
The beans, being freed from all spoiled and mouldy portions, are to be gently roasted over a fire in an iron cylinder, with holes in its ends for allowing the vapors to escape, the apparatus being similar to a coffee-roaster. When the aroma begins to be well developed, the roasting is known to be finished, and the beans must be turned out, cooled, and freed by fanning and sifting from their husks. The kernels are then to be converted into a paste, either by trituration in a mortar heated to 130 degrees Fahr., or by a powerful mill.[1] The cacao tree resembles our dwarf apple tree both in body and branches, but the leaf, which is of a dark green, is considerably broader and larger. The nuts are of the color and about the size of an almond, and hang eighteen to thirty together by a slender stringy film, enclosed in a pod. A ripe pod is of a beautiful yellow, intermixed with crimson streaks; when dried, it shrivels up and changes to a deep brown; the juice squeezed from the mucilaginous pulp contained in the husks of these nuts appears like cream, and has a very grateful taste of a cordial quality. The nuts have a light pleasant smell, and an unctuous, bitterish, roughish (not ungrateful) taste. Those of Nicaragua and Caracas are the most agreeable and are the largest; those of the French Antilles, and our own West India islands, are the most unctuous.