about a foot long, and an inch and a half or two inches diameter: it is at first green, but when ripe pale yellow. The skin is tough; and within is a soft pulp of a luscious sweet flavour. The spikes of the fruit are often so large as to weigh upwards of 40lb. The fruit of this sort is generally cut before it is ripe. The green skin is pulled off, and the heart is roasted in a clear fire for a few minutes, and frequently turned: it is then scraped, and served up as bread. Boiled plantains are not so palatable.

This tree is cultivated on a very extensive scale in Jamaica, with out the fruit of which, Dr. Wright says, the island would scarcely be habitable, as no species of provision could supply their place. Even flour or bread itself would be less agreeable, and less able to support the laborious negro, so as to enable him to do his business, or to keep in health. Plantains also fatten horses, cattle, swine, dogs, fowls, and other domestic animals. The leaves being smooth and soft, are employed as dressings after blisters. The water from off the trunk is astringent, and employed by some to check diarrhoeas. Every other part of the tree is useful in different parts of rural economy. The leaves are used for napkins and table cloths, and are food for hogs.

2. Banana Tree.

Musa Sapientum.-LINN.

This species differs from the preceding in having its stalks marked with dark purple stripes and spots. The fruit is shorter, straighter, and rounder; the pulp is softer, and of a more luscious taste. It is never eaten green; but when ripe it is very agreeable either eaten raw or fried in slices, as fritters; and is relished by all ranks of people in the West Indies. Both these plants were carried to the West Indies from the Canary Islands, whither, it is believed, they had been brought from Guinea, where they grow naturally. They are also cultivated in Egypt, and in most other hot countries, where they grow to perfection in about ten months from their first planting to the ripening of their fruit. When their stalks are cut down, several suckers come up from the roots, which in six or eight months produce fruit; so that by cutting down the stalks at different times, there is a constant succession of fruit all the year. In Europe some of these plants are raised by gentlemen who have hothouses capacious enough for their reception, in many of which they

have ripened their fruit very well; but as they grow very tall, and their leaves are large, they require more room in the stove than most people are willing to allow them. They are propagated by suckers, which come from the roots of those plants that have fruited; and many times the younger plants, when stinted in growth, also put out suckers. The fruit of this tree is four or five inches long, of the size and shape of a middling cucumber, and of a highlygrateful flavour: the leaves are two yards long, and a foot broad in the middle; they join to the top of the body of the tree, and often contain in their cavities a great quantity of water, which runs out upon a small incision being made into the tree, at the junction of the leaves. Bananas grow in great bunches, that weigh 12lbs. and upwards. The body of the tree is so porous as not to merit the name of wood; the tree is only perennial by its roots, and dies down to the ground every autumn. When the natives of the West Indies (says Labat) undertake a voyage, they make provision of a paste of bananas, which, in case of need, serves them for nourishment and drink: for this purpose they take ripe bananas, and having squeezed them through a fine sieve, form the solid fruit into small loaves, which are dried in the sun or in hot ashes, after being previously wrapped up in the leaves of Indian flowering-reed. [Wright. Labat. Wildenow.

SECTION VI.

Cassava or Cassada, Manioc or Manihoc.

Jatropha.-LINN.

Or this useful genus of plants there are nine species; and of these we shall notice five.

1. J. Carcas, or English Physic-nut, with leaves cordate and angular; a knotty shrub growing about ten or twelve feet high. The extremities of the branches are covered with leaves; and the flowers, which are of a green herbaceous kind, are set on in an umbel fashion round the extremities of the branches, but especially the main stalks. These are succeeded by as many nuts, whose outward tegument is green and husky, which being peeled off, discovers the nut, whose shell is black, and easily cracked; this contains an almond-like kernel, divided into two parts, between which separation lie two milk-white thin membranaceous leaves, easily separable from each other. These have not only a bare resemblance of

perfect leaves, but have in particular every part, the stalk, middle rib, and transverse ones, as visible as any leaf whatsoever.

2. The gossypifolia, cotton-leaved jatropha, or belly-ache bush, the leaves of which are quinquepartite, with lobes ovate and entire, and glandular branchy bristles. The stem, which is covered with a light-greyish bark, grows to about three or four feet high, soon dividing into several wide-extended branches. From among these rise several small deep-red pentapetalous flowers, the pistil of each being thick-set at the top with yellow farinaceous dust, which blows off when ripe. These flowers are succeeded by hexagonal husky blackish berries, which, when ripe, open by the heat of the sun, emitting a great many small dark-coloured seeds, which serve as food for some species of the dove.

3. The multifida, or French physic-nut, with leaves many-parted and polished. The flowers of this grow in bunches, umbel fashion, upon the extremities of each large stalk, very much resembling, at their first appearance, a bunch of red coral: these afterwards open into small five-leaved purple flowers, and are succeeded by nuts, which resemble those of the first species.

4. The manihot, or bitter cassada, has palmated leaves; the lobes lanceolate, very entire and polished.

5. The janipha, or sweet cassada, has palmated leaves, with lobes very entire, the intermediate leaves lobed with a sinus on both sides.

6. The elastica, with ternate leaves, elliptic, very entire, hoary underneath, and longly petioled.

The root of bitter cassada has no fibrous or woody filaments in the heart, and neither boils nor roasts soft. The sweet cassada has all the opposite qualities. The bitter, however, may be deprived of its noxious qualities (which reside in the juice) by heat. Cassada bread, therefore, is made of both the bitter and sweet, thus: the roots are washed and scraped clean, then grated into a tub or trough; after this they are put into a hair bag, and strongly pressed, with a view to squeeze out the juice, and the meal or farina is dried in a hot stone bason over the fire; it is then made into cakes. It also makes excellent puddings, equal to millet. The scrapings of fresh bitter cassada are successfully applied to ill-disposed ulcers. Cassada roots yield a great quantity of starch, which the Brazilians export in little lumps, under the name of tapioca.

According to father Labat, the smallest bits of manioc which have escaped the grater, and the clods which have not passed the sieve, are not useless. They are dried in the stove after the flour is roasted, and then pounded in a mortar to a fine white powder, with which they make soup. It is likewise used for making a kind of thick coarse cassada, which is roasted till almost burnt; of this, fermented with molasses and West India potatoes, they prepare a much-esteemed drink or beverage, called ouycou. This liquor, the favourite drink of the natives, is sometimes made extremely strong, especially on any great occasion, as a feast; with this they get intoxicated, and remembering their old quarrels, massacre and murder each other. Such of the inhabitants and workmen as have not wine, drink ouycou. It is of a red colour, strong, nourishing, refreshing, and easily inebriates the inhabitants, who soon accustom themselves to it as easily as beer.

[Linn. Labat. Editor.

SECTION VII.

Rice.

Oryza.-LINN.

Or this most useful esculent there is but one known species, which is supposed to be a native of Ethiopia, though now propagated in different parts of the four quarters of the globe. It affords many varieties, of which the following are the chief.

a Common rice: cut six or eight months after planting.

Early rice: ripens, and is cut the fourth month after planting. y Dry or mountain rice: the paddy of the Hindus; grows in mountains and other dry soils.

Clammy rice with large, glutinous, very white seeds; will grow well in both dry and moist soils.

These plants may be increased by seeds in the early parts of spring. The seeds should be sown in a hot-bed, and when the plants appear, they should be transplanted into pots filled with rich light earth, and placed in pans of water, which should be plunged into a hot-bed; and as the water wastes, it must be renewed from time to time. The plants must be preserved in a stove all the summer; when towards the end of August they will produce grain,

which will ripen tolerably well, provided the autumn prove favourable.

It is probable, however, that the mountain-rice, which endures a very considerable degree of cold on the tops of the loftiest hills of Hindustan, and grows in the midst of snow, might be naturalized to our own climate.

Rice is the principal food of the inhabitants in all parts of the East; where it is boiled and eaten, either alone or with their meat. Large quantities of it are sent annually into Europe, and it meets with a general esteem for family purposes. The Javanese have a method of making puddings which seems to be unknown here, but which is not difficult to be practised. They take a conical earthen pot which is open at the large end, and perforated all over: this they fill about half full with rice, and putting it into a larger earthen pot of the same shape, filled with boiling water, the rice in the first pot soon swells, and stops the perforations so as to keep out the water: by this method the rice is brought to a firm consistence, and forms a pudding, which is generally eaten with butter, oil, sugar, vinegar, and spices. The Indians eat stewed rice with good success against the bloody flux; and in most inflammatory disorders they cure themselves with only a decoction of it. The spirituous liquor called arrack is made from this grain. Rice grows naturally in moist places; and will not come to perfection, when cultivated, unless the ground be sometimes overflowed, or plentifully watered. The grain is of a grey colour when first reaped; but the growers have a method of whitening it before it is sent to market. The manner of performing this, and beating it out in Egypt, is thus described by Hasselquist. They have hollow iron cylindrical pestles, about an inch diameter, lifted by a wheel worked with oxen. A person sits between the pestles, and as they rise, pushes forward the rice, whilst another winnows and supplies fresh parcels. Thus they continue working until it is entirely free from chaff. Having in this manner cleaned it, they add one-thirtieth part of salt, and rub them both together, by which the grain acquires a whiteness; then it is passed through a sieve, to separate the salt again from it. In the island of Ceylon they have a much more expeditious method of getting out the rice; for in the field where it is reaped they dig a round hole, with a level bottom, about a foot deep, and eight yards diameter, and fill it with bundles of corn. Having laid it properly, the women drive about half a