BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF COCHIN
CLEAN AND AIRY CHOWRINGHEE ROAD (Esplanade at Left)
LOOKING NORTH OVER CALCUTTA, INDIA
Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.
It is inferred from the examination of specimens of preserved ginger that are sent abroad from China that the Chinese have a species unknown in other countries. This inference is in harmony with the well-known Chinese secretiveness, a characteristic of this strange people which is not only inbred but also inborn. It is possible, however, that some other plant which is not true ginger may be used in making the celebrated Canton preserved ginger, but, while this possibility is suspected, it has not been proven.
The British and American markets derive their supply of ginger from various parts of the world. The principal kinds found in commerce are Jamaica ([Fig. 5]), Cochin ([Fig. 3]), and African ([Fig. 4]), the Sierra Leone district producing the bulk of the African. Although each of these in its turn has several varieties and qualities, the best and most valued kind of all is Jamaica ([Fig. 5]), and next to it is the Cochin ([Fig. 3]). The Cochin when bleached resembles Jamaica to some extent. Ginger is classified into several species, as the narrow leaf, the broad leaf, and the Japanese red leaf; the narrow leaf being the most esteemed.
Ginger thrives best on rich clay or cool loam soil that is well drained. New land which has been plowed but two or three times is best adapted to its cultivation. The ground should be dug up and cleared of weeds. The plant will not grow in dry sand or hard clay soil.
Ginger, being an underground stem of tuberous-appearing roots, takes its botanical name, rhizome, from the Spanish word rais, a root. These roots are known in commerce as races, and in Jamaica as hands, from their irregular palmate form. The real roots are the fibers thrown off the rhizomes.
It is a perennial, reed-like plant, similar in appearance to our iris or flag root, two aerial stems being thrown up from each of the underground roots ([Fig. 1]), which soon rise above ground to the height of three or four feet. The first of the shoots thrown up bears the leaves, and the second or shorter stem, the flowers, which blossom in August (rhodon) or September. At this time the ground will be covered by the spread of the leaves which wither and fade at the close of the year, when the root is in a ripe state and is ready for harvesting. The leaves are alternate, bright-green, smooth, and tapering or lanceolate at both ends, with very short petioles which gradually diverge from the stem until they are nearly horizontal, seven or eight inches in length.
The flowers are borne on the shorter separate stem ([Fig. 2]), averaging from six to twelve inches high at the apex of the stems. They appear in dense, ovate, oblong, cane-like spikes from two to three inches long, composed of obtuse, strongly imbricated bracts or scales with membranous margins between each bract, enclosing a single small yellowish-white sessile flower with purple or blue marking, and have an agreeable fragrance.