Arrowroot is often adulterated in this country with potato flour and other ingredients.
Dr. Lankester asserts that the value of arrowroot starch, as an article of diet, is not greater than that of potato starch, and that the yield of starch is not greater from the arrowroot than from potatoes; but this I must decidedly deny. Chemical analysis and experience are proofs to the contrary.
The analogy arrowroot has to potato starch, has induced many persons to adulterate the former substance with it; and not only has this been done, but I have known instances in which potato starch alone has been sold for the genuine foreign article. There is no harm in this, to a certain extent; but it certainly is a very great fraud upon the public (and one for which the perpetrators ought to be most severely punished), to sell so cheap an article at the same price as one which is comparatively costly. There is, moreover, in potato starch, a peculiar taste, bringing to mind that of raw potatoes, from which the genuine arrowroot is entirely free. This fraud, however, can be readily detected; arrowroot is not quite so white as potato starch, and its grains are smaller, and have a pearly and very brilliant lustre; and further, it always contains peculiar clotted masses, more or less large, which have been formed by the adhesion of a multitude of grains during the drying. These masses crush very readily when pressed between the fingers, and as before stated, arrowroot is free from that peculiar odor due to potato starch. This may be most readily developed by mixing the suspected sample with hot water; if it be genuine arrowroot, the mixture is inodorous, if potato starch, the smell of raw potatoes is immediately developed. If a mixture of arrowroot and potato starch be minutely observed by means of a good microscope, the grains of arrowroot may be readily detected; they are very small and exceedingly regular in shape, whilst those of potato starch are much larger, and very irregular in shape. But the most convenient and delicate test of all, is that proposed by Dr. Scharling, of Copenhagen. After mentioning the test by the microscope, he goes on to state that he has obtained more favorable results by employing diluted nitric acid; and that, if arrowroot or potato starch be mixed with about two parts of concentrated nitric acid, both will immediately assume a tough gelatinous state. This mass, when potato starch is employed, is almost transparent, and when arrowroot is used, is nearly opaque, as in the case above mentioned, in which hydrochloric acid is substituted. A mixture of nitric acid and water, however, operates very differently on these two kinds of starch. The glutinous mass yielded by the potato starch, becomes in a very brief period so tough that the pestle employed for stirring the mixture is sufficiently agglutinated to the mortar, that the latter may be lifted from the table by its means. Arrowroot, on the other hand, requires from twenty-five to thirty minutes to acquire a like tenacity.
The Lancet recently stated that, on a microscopical analysis of 50 samples of arrowroot, purchased indiscriminately of various London tradesmen, 22 were found to be adulterated. In 16 cases this adulteration consisted in the addition of a single inferior product much cheaper in price, such as potato flour, sago meal, or tapioca starch, while in other instances there was a combination of these articles, potato flour being usually preponderant. Ten of the mixtures contained scarcely a particle of the genuine Maranta or West India arrowroot, for which they were sold. One consisted almost wholly of sago meal; two of potato flour and sago meal; two of potato flour, sago meal, and tapioca starch; one of tapioca starch; and four of potato arrowroot, or starch entirely. The worst specimens were those which were done up in canisters especially marked as "Genuine West India arrowroot," or as being "warranted free from adulteration;" and one, which contained a considerable quantity of potato flour, was particularly recommended to invalids, and certified as the finest quality ever imported into this country. The profits to the vendors of the inferior compounds are to be estimated from the fact that the price of sago meal and potato starch is about 4d. per lb., while the genuine Maranta arrowroot is from 1s. to 3s. 6d. per lb.
The arrowroot of Bermuda has long borne a high reputation, being manufactured on a better principle and being therefore of superior quality to that produced in Antigua, St. Vincent, and other West Indian islands. The process is tedious and requires a good deal of labor. There is no doubt, however, that the quality of the water has a great deal of influence on the fecula. Bermuda arrowroot is necessarily made from rain water collected in tanks or reservoirs, and the lime and the deposit from houses, &c., may alter its properties. After the root is taken from the ground it is placed in a mill, and is thereby cleansed of its exterior excrescences; it is then thoroughly washed, when it is ready for the large machine, the principle of which is similar to the "treadmill." A horse is placed on something like a platform, and as he prances up and down, the machinery is set in play. A person stands at the end, and places the root in the wheel of the machine, which, after being ground, falls into a trough of water. After going through this process, it is rewashed and then placed in vessels to dry in the sun. It is packed in boxes lined with blue paper or tin, and sent to the markets in England and America, where it generally meets with ready sale.
At a meeting of the Agricultural Society of Bermuda, held in May, 1840, Mr. W.M. Cox submitted a new arrowroot strainer which he had invented. It consists of two cloth strainers fixed to hoops from 15 to 20 inches in diameter. The strainers working one within the other, are kept in motion by a lever, moved by hand. The whole apparatus is not an expensive one, and is well adapted for aiding the manufacture of arrowroot upon an expeditious and economical plan.
A simple method by which starch may be extracted from the fecula with much purity consists in enclosing the flour in a muslin bag and squeezing it with the fingers while submerged in clean water, by which process the starch passes out in a state of white powder and subsides. Two essential constituents of flour are thus separated from each other; a viscid substance remains in the bag, which is called gluten, and the white powder deposited is starch.
The principal quarters from whence the supply is derived, are the Bermudas, St. Vincent, Barbados and Grenada, in the West Indies; Ceylon, and some other parts of the East—and a few of our settlements on the West coast of Africa. The annual imports for home consumption average 500 tons.
The cultivation of arrowroot for the production of starch in St. Vincent has increased enormously of late years. In 1835, the island produced 41,397 lbs.; in 1845 it exported 828,842 lbs. The exports to 15th June, 1851, were, 2,934 barrels, 2,083 half barrels, 5,610 tins. The culture is year by year extending, and as, unlike that of the sugar cane, it may be carried on on a small scale with very little outlay of capital, we may reasonably anticipate a still further progressive extension for some years to come. Arrowroot, when once established in virgin soil, produces several crops with very little culture. In the first half of 1851, 25,027 lbs. were shipped from Montego Bay, Jamaica. The quantity of arrowroot on which duty of 1s. per cwt. was paid in the six years ending 1840, was as follows:—
| Cwts. | |
| 1835 | 3,581 |
| 1836 | 3,280 |
| 1837 | 2,858 |
| 1838 | 2,538 |
| 1839 | 2,264 |
| 1840 | 2,124 |