Chapter V: Uses of Plants to Man (1)

For perhaps the largest number of readers the chief value of plants is what they furnish in the way of food, clothing, fuel, and so forth, and from this standpoint alone the study of them is more than worth while. It is unnecessary here to enumerate all the thousand and one things that we get from plants, and no attempt will be made to do so in the following pages. But certain plants like wheat, corn, cotton, jute, rubber producers, and tobacco have so shaped the life of the people, so absolutely dictated the development of whole regions of the earth’s surface that their stories are part of the history of mankind. What our cotton fields of the South, the wheat and corn fields of the Middle West, the jute in India, and the coconut palm and sugar cane in the tropics have done to dictate the economic destiny of those regions is common knowledge. Hundreds of less important plants throughout the world contribute their quota to the huge debt that man owes to the plant world. Probably no other feature of plant life offers such attractions as the study of man’s uses of plants, which is known as Economic Botany, and for which our Government maintains a large staff of experts. Some of the publications of this bureau are textbooks of the greatest value to those who grow or import plants or their products. What that amounts to in the aggregate no one can readily estimate. It certainly exceeds all other commerce combined.

1. FOODS

Those early ancestors of ours that roamed over northern and central Europe between the periods of ice invasion, which at times made all that country uninhabitable, tell us by the relics of them found in caves that agriculture was then unknown. Living mostly by the chase and on a few wild fruits picked from the forest these half-wild and savage people wandered wherever game was plentiful and the continental glacier would permit. But there came a day when one of these races began the cultivation of some of the wild plants about them and with that day dawned the real beginning of man’s use of plants. And with that day also these simplest of our ancestors stopped their wanderings in large part and became farmers, albeit very crude ones, as their primitive stone implements show. They did not give up the chase, but their collection into more or less permanent camps or villages began with their cultivation of plants. Just when this happened no one can say, but most estimates of the time since the last ice age indicate that it could not have been much less than forty thousand years ago. And considerably before this, and long before the use of metals by man, we find these stone implements of agriculture and the probable beginnings of that great reliance upon plant life which the modern world has carried to such tremendous lengths. Unfortunately we do not know what plants these “Men of the Old Stone Age” grew in their primitive gardens, and it is thousands of years after this, and after man’s discovery of the use of metals, that we know definitely what plants he grew and how he used them. Unquestionably some of the early uses of plants, such as dyes for the face or for “rock pictures” are very ancient and are found long before any sign of agriculture, but as food in the sense of being produced food rather than that gathered from the wild, there are only the faintest traces until, in the remains of the lake dwellers in Austria, a single grain of wheat was discovered. Their metal instruments showed them to have been familiar not only with this, but with other plants, and it is well to remember that these people lived far longer ago than our most ancient historical records such as the Egyptians or Chinese. Both the latter, so far as our oldest records of them show, were an agricultural people who had enormously developed man’s uses of plants as compared with the men of the stone or bronze ages, whose agriculture must perhaps forever be a secret of the past.

WHEAT

The discovery of the grain of wheat in the remains of the lake dwellers tells us some things about men’s travels even in those early days, for wheat is not a wild plant there and must have come to central Europe from a great distance. Researches upon the home and antiquity of wheat are not very definite, but its occurrence as a wild plant somewhere in Mesopotamia or the vicinity appears to be indicated. The Chinese grew it 2700 B.C. and the earliest Egyptians spoke of its origin with them as due to mythical personages such as Isis, Ceres, or Triptolemus. From its ancient and perhaps rather restricted home it has gone throughout the temperate parts of the earth and now forms perhaps the most important source of food. Although many different kinds of wheat are raised in different parts of the world most of them have been derived from one wild ancestor, _Triticum sativum_. Forms known as hard and soft wheat and dozens of others suited to different regions or market conditions have been developed by plant breeders. As the most important of all the cereals it has been much studied, and its cultivation in America is on such a tremendous scale that we furnish a large part of the world’s supply. Russia, Argentina, and the southern part of Australia also raise large quantities. The plant is a grass and the “seed” is really a grain or fruit in which the outer husk tightly incloses the true seed.

It were perhaps well to note here that popular stories about the germination of grains of wheat taken from Egyptian mummies are not true. Wheat and even corn are sometimes given to travelers, and it is taken from these ancient Egyptian tombs. But it was not put there by the early Egyptians, as the presence of corn proves only too well. For this cereal is an American plant unknown before Columbus and 1492. Arabs and others have recently inserted various seeds in these mummies, some of which undoubtedly have germinated--hence the fable. The early Egyptians did put seeds in their mummy cases, but none have ever germinated.

INDIAN CORN OR MAIZE

The grass family furnishes this second most important cereal to all Americans and Europeans, although among inhabitants of tropical regions rice is perhaps more important than either wheat or corn. With the discovery of America the early travelers found the North American Indians, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians all growing corn and using it on a considerable scale. It must have been grown for hundreds of years before that time, as its wide distribution and many varieties testified even at that date. Its true home nor its actual wild ancestor has never been certainly determined, but a wild plant very closely related to our modern corn is found in the northern part of South America, and either there or in Central America is apparently the ancient home of corn. So much had corn entered into the life of the early Mexicans that the first Europeans to visit that country found the Mexicans making elaborate religious offerings to their corn goddess. And, as in Egypt, the tombs of the Incas of Peru contain seeds of the cereal most prized, which in the case of corn consists of several varieties. While their civilization is not as old as certain Old World races, the cultivation of corn must date back to the very beginnings of the Christian era. It is now spread throughout the world in warm regions, and as early as 1597 it was grown in China, a fact that led to the erroneous notion that China was its true home. Perhaps no fact is more conclusive as to its American origin than that corn belongs to a genus _Zea_, which contains only the single species _mays_, with perhaps one or two varieties, and that until the discovery of America _Zea mays_ or Indian corn was unknown either as a wild or cultivated plant. Such an important cereal, if it actually were wild in the Old World, would have spread thousands of years ago as wheat did, and Columbus and his adventurous successors would not have brought from the New World a food that has since become second only to wheat.

Field corn of several different sorts, pop corn, and sweet corn were all developed by the Indians from the ancient stock, but comparatively recently the juice of the stem has been used for making corn sirup. The use of the leaves for cattle feed is known to all farmers, and from its solid stems it is now likely that some fiber good for paper making will be extracted.

RICE

Both wheat and corn are grasses that are cultivated in ordinary farm soils, but rice is derived from a grass that is nearly always grown for part of its life in water. It is taller than wheat, but not so tall as corn, and its wild home is in the tropical parts of southeastern Asia. It is still grown there in greatest quantity, and in the Philippines, while only a small part of the world’s supply comes from the New World. There are perhaps more people that rely upon rice for food than upon wheat and corn combined. It still is the principal article of diet of the inhabitants of China, Japan, India, and dozens of smaller Old World regions, while its use as a vegetable in tropical America is practically universal. A considerable part of the starch manufactured in Europe still comes from rice, and in India the intoxicating beverage arrack is made from it. The Japanese saké, a sweetish intoxicating liquor, is also made from rice. Notwithstanding its wide use it is not as nutritious as wheat or corn, being much lower in proteins than either of them.

More than 2800 years before Christ the Chinese cultivated rice, for at that time one of the emperors instituted a ceremony in which the grain plays the chief part. It has been grown on land useful to almost no other crops as it is usually subject to inundations. Some varieties, however, have been developed which will grow on uplands and these are grown even on terraced land both in China and the Philippines. It needs a heavy rainfall, however, and grows best in lands that are flooded. It is occasional dry seasons that produce the famines of India when the crop fails. The botanical name of rice is _Oryza sativa_, and it is known now as a wild plant in India and tropical Australia. Its introduction into Europe must have been long after wheat, for rice is not mentioned in the Bible, and was unknown in Italy before 1468, when it was first grown near Pisa. Rice paper, which some people think is made from this grain, comes from the pith of _Aralia papyrifera_, a tree of the rain forests of Formosa, related to our temperate region Hercules’-club.

SUGAR

In the chapter on what plants do with the material they take from the air and soil we found that sugar was one of the first fruits of that process. In at least two plants the overproduction of sugar is on such a great scale that our chief supplies of this substance now come from these two plants--the sugar cane, which is a tall grass, and the sugar beet. Hundreds of other plants produce surplus sugar, but for commercial purposes these two, and the sap of the sugar maple (_Acer saccharum_), are our chief sources of supply.

Cane sugar is an Old World grass known as _Saccharum officinarum_, frequently growing twelve feet high, and with a solid woody stem, quite unlike our ordinary grasses. It looks not unlike corn on a stout stem, and it is the stem which is cut and from which the sweet juice is pressed out between great rollers. The pressed-out juice goes through various processes in the course of which first molasses, then brown sugar, and finally white granulated sugar are produced.

Our consumption of sugar is now on such a scale that we scarcely realize that before the days of Shakespeare it was very scarce and expensive. Even as recently as 1840 it regularly sold in England for forty-eight shillings per hundred pounds, wholesale. At that time the total consumption in the world was only slightly over a million tons, while to-day it is over fifteen times that amount. The plant is native in tropical Asia, but just where is not known, nor are wild plants found in any quantity. It has been much modified by long cultivation, and has been reproduced by root-stocks for so long a period that it is rare for the plant to bear flower and seed. It has been known in India since before the Christian era, and was taken from there to China about 200 B. C. Neither the Greeks nor Romans knew much about it, nor do the Hebrew writings mention it. Somewhere in the Middle Ages the Arabs brought it into Egypt, Sicily, and Spain. Not until the discovery of the New World was it cultivated on any considerable scale, when the climate of Santo Domingo and Cuba and the African slaves imported to those islands afforded conditions that resulted in Cuba at least being one of the world’s chief sugar-producing countries. Sugar cane is now grown all over the earth in regions with a hot, moist climate, India and neighboring countries producing over half the world’s supply. Practically all the sugar produced in India is used there, however, so that the American tropics furnish to Europe and America about one-third of the world’s total consumption of cane sugar.

In 1840 under fifty thousand tons of beet sugar were produced, while in 1900 more sugar from this plant was made than from sugar cane. Considerably more than half this beet sugar was grown in three countries, Russia, Austria, and Germany, which explains what the great war has done to the sugar market. The plant from which beet sugar is derived is botanically the same as the common garden beet, _Beta vulgaris_, which is wild on sandy beaches along the Mediterranean and Caspian seas, and perhaps in India. Much cultivation has made this slender-rooted plant into the large-rooted vegetable we now have and its sugar content was much increased by Vilmorin, a French horticulturist. Many garden varieties are known, and some of these are grown in the United States, where beet sugar is produced, although in 1910 less than half a million tons were made here as against over four million tons in Europe. While the beet as a vegetable was known perhaps a century or two before the time of Christ, it was not until 1760 that its sugar content was understood, and it was nearly eighty years later before beet sugar became commercially important. Its cultivation in England on any considerable scale did not begin before the beginning of the present century.

THE BANANA

Among the largest herbs in the world are the ordinary banana plants, now cultivated throughout the tropical regions, but originally native in the Malay Archipelago. From there it spread into India, and the early Greeks, Latins, and Arabs considered it a remarkable fruit of some Indian tree. It is actually a giant herb with a tremendous fleshy stem, formed mostly of the tightly clasping leaf bases, the blade of which is frequently ten to twelve feet long. In nature the blade splits into many segments due to tearing by the wind, a process that the plant not only tolerates but aids. The leaf has a thinner texture between its principal lateral veins, and along these weaker parts the leaf tears so that normal plants are usually almost in ribbons. The leaf expanse, without this relief, is so great that tropical storms would doubtless destroy the plant.

Many wild species of the banana are still found in tropical Old World countries, the genus _Musa_ to which the banana belongs having over sixty-five species. There are at least three well-marked types of banana used to-day, two of them, our common yellow one and a smaller red sort being fruits of almost universal use. The remaining type is usually larger than the kinds sent to northern markets, is picked and used while still green and is always cooked before using, usually boiled as a vegetable. In this form it is known as the _plantain_, and is a good substitute for the potato in regions where the latter cannot be grown. Plantains are used on a large scale in all tropical countries, much more so than the yellow and red bananas which are familiar enough in northern markets. These are too sweet to be used as a staple diet, and the plantain is practically the only such diet which millions of the poorer people in the tropics ever get. There is almost no native hut but has its plantain field.

The flowers of the banana plants, all of which appear to be derived from the single species _Musa sapientum_ or possibly also from _Musa paradisiaca_, are borne in a large terminal cluster which ultimately develops into the “hand” of bananas familiar in the fruit shops. The plant then dies down and a new one develops from a shoot at the base of the old stem. For countless ages this has been the only method of reproduction, and usually the banana produces no seeds. The plant is easily grown in greenhouses, one in the conservatory of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden producing 214 pounds in a single cluster consisting of 300 bananas.

POTATO

Sir Walter Raleigh is usually credited with the introduction of the potato into Europe, although it appears as though the Spaniards were the first to bring the plant from America. It was brought to Ireland in 1585 or 1586 and from its wide use there became known as the Irish potato. Its native home is in southern South America, and although Columbus did not mention it after his first and second voyages, subsequent Spanish adventurers found natives on the mainland making extensive use of it. There are now several wild relatives of it in South America, but their tubers are not so large as those of _Solanum tuberosum_ from which all the different varieties of potato have been derived. The plant is too well known to need description here, but its edible tuber, actually a stem organ, is often wrongly called a root. Figure 8 shows the tubers and true roots of the plant.

The sweet potato, which in early writings was often confused with _Solanum tuberosum_, is a very different plant. Its edible portion is the root of a vine very like our common morning-glory or convolvulus, and its Latin name is _Ipomœa batatas_. The specific name is taken from a native American word, which due to early confusion was corrupted into potato, and applied to the “Irish” potato. No one certainly knows where the sweet potato is native, but probably in tropical America. It belongs to a section of the genus _Ipomœa_, all the other species of which are American, and before Columbus and his followers its cultivation was unknown in the Old World. It was very soon carried by the Portuguese to Japan and other parts of the Old World, and for a time it was thought to be native there. America, however, is in all probability its ancient home, although no really wild plant has ever been found there or anywhere else. Its cultivation from very early times in America is indicated, and Columbus upon his return from the New World presented sweet potatoes to Queen Isabella.

COCONUT

It has been said many times that there are more uses for this plant than there are days in a year. Wood, thatch, rope, matting, an intoxicating beverage, and scores of other things are derived from different parts of this palm, but it is as a food and beverage that its chief value lies. The coconut palm is a tall tree with a dense crown of feathery but stout leaves and inhabits all parts of the tropics. It is found apparently wild along sandy shores, but its ancient home, while still unknown, is probably America. Each year the tree bears from ten to twenty fruits which are at first covered with a green and very tough fibrous husk, inside which is the seed, the coconut of commerce. In the early stages of the fruit the white meat is preceded in large part by a delicious milky liquid much used by the natives, but only rarely found in any quantity in the coconuts shipped to our markets. The meat is highly nutritious and is used on a great scale as food by millions of tropical peoples. Within the last few years a method of taking out the meat of the coconut and shipping it in a state of arrested fermentation to the north has been discovered. This product, known as copra, is produced in enormous quantities, both in the Old and the New World, particularly in India and the Philippines. From this copra a palm oil is refined, which is the chief source of the nut butter now so widely sold. Some idea of the extent of the cultivation of coconuts may be gleaned from the fact that in India and the Philippines the trees are counted by the hundreds of millions. The oil from the nuts is also largely used in cookery, in making candles, for burning in lamps, and in making certain kinds of perfume. The tree belongs to the _Palmaceæ_, a monocotyledonous family of plants of great commercial importance. It is known as _Cocos nucifera_, and the genus has over a hundred species, all of tropical American origin. Whether _Cocos nucifera_ is American or not is still a disputed point. From the fact that it will float in sea water without injury to the seed it has been supposed that it was carried great distances by currents. It is found both wild and cultivated throughout the tropical world, and its use appears to have been known to the Asiatics probably four thousand years ago. The curious fact remains that it is the only palm that, in its wild state, is known both in the Old and New World, all others being peculiar to one hemisphere or the other. Perhaps its capacity for floating in the sea without injury may explain what is otherwise still a good deal of a mystery.

There are many other foods derived from plants, besides all the fruits and vegetables too numerous to be noted in detail here. One fact of significance seems to stand out from a study of the uses of plants by man. There are three distinct regions from which the great bulk of our food and many other useful plants have apparently come. One is the area of which Indo-China is approximately the center, and which is the ancestral home of rice, the banana, tea, sugar cane, and many other valuable plants. Somewhere in this southeastern corner of Asia there must have been a highly developed agriculture which rescued these plants from the wild, and from which they have spread throughout the world. The second region, somewhere near Mesopotamia, appears to be the cradle of wheat and a few other useful plants. And the third region is the western part of America from southern Mexico to northern Chile, where corn, tobacco, the pineapple, sweet potato, potato, the red pepper, and the tomato were all discovered with the discovery of this continent.

Alphonse de Candolle, from whose studies much of our information on the origin of cultivated plants is derived, once prepared a list of our common vegetables showing their ancient homes, their wild ancestors, and the length of time during which they have been in cultivation. With some recent additions and corrections by Dr. Orland E. White of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the list is printed below:

The letters indicate the probable length of cultivation.

(_a_) A species cultivated for more than 4,000 years.

(_b_) A species cultivated for more than 2,000 years.

(_c_) A species cultivated for less than 2,000 years.

(_d_) A species cultivated very anciently in America.

(_e_) A species cultivated in America before 1492 without giving evidence of great antiquity of culture.

(_f_) A species or subspecies of very recent domestication.

COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME DATE ORIGIN
Artichoke, Globe _Cynara Scolymus_ L. C Southern Europe,
northern Africa,
Canary Islands.
Artichoke, _Helianthus tuberosus_ L. E Eastern North America.
Jerusalem
Asparagus _Asparagus officinalis_ L. B Europe, western temperate
Asia.
Bean (Broad
or Windsor) _Vicia Faba_ L. B(?) Temperate Europe.
Bean (Pole
Lima) _Phaseolus lunatus_ L. E Tropical America, Peru,
Brazil.
Bean (Bush
Lima) _Phaseolus lunatus_ L. F Eastern North America.
Bean (String,
etc.) _Phaseolus vulgaris_ L. D Western South America.
Bean (Tepary) _Phaseolus acutifolius_ D Southwestern United
Gray States.
Bean (Adzuki) _Phaseolus angularis_
Willd. B(?) China, Japan.
Beet (Chard) _Beta vulgaris_ L. B Canary Islands,
Mediterranean region,
western temperate
Asia.
Beet (Root) _Beta vulgaris_ L. B Europe, Mediterranean
region.
Broccoli _Brassica oleracea_ var.
_botrytis_ DC. C Western Asia.
Brussels
sprouts _Brassica oleracea_ var.
_gemmifera_ DC. C Belgium (?)
Cabbage _Brassica oleracea_ L. A Western Asia.
Cabbage
(Chinese) _Brassica Pe-tsai_ Bailey B China, Japan.
Carrot _Daucus Carota_ L. B Europe, western temperarate
Asia.
Cauliflower _Brassica oleracea_ B Western Asia.
_botrytis_ DC.
Celeriac _Apium graveolens_ L. var.
_rapaceum_ DC. C Europe.
Celery _Apium graveolens_ L. B Temperate and southern
Europe, northern
Africa, western
Asia.
Chives _Allium Schoenoprasum_ L. C Temperate Europe,
Siberia, northern
North America.
Corn (field) _Zea Mays_ L. D Mexico, northwestern
South America (?)
Corn (sweet) _Zea Mays saccharata_ E Eastern North America,
Sturt. New England.
Cress (garden) _Lepidium sativum_ L. B Persia (?).
Cress (water) _Radicula
Nasturtium-aquaticum_ L. B Europe, northern Asia.
Cucumber _Cucumis sativus_ L. A India.
Cucumber
(gherkin) _Cucumis Anguria_ L. F West Indies.
Dandelion _Taraxacum officinale_ Weber C Europe and Asia.
Egg plant
(aubergine) _Solanum Melongena_ L. A India, East Indies.
Endive _Cichorium Endiva_ L. C Mediterranean region,
Caucasus, Turkestan.
Garlic _Allium sativum_ L. B Kirghis desert region
in Siberia.
Horse-radish _Roripa Armoracea_ L. C Eastern temperate
Europe, western
Asia.
Kale _Brassica oleracea_
var. _acephala_ DC. B Europe.
Kohl-rabi _Brassica oleracea_
var. _Caulo-Rapa_ DC. B Europe.
Leek _Allium Porrum_ L. B Mediterranean region,
Egypt.
Lentil _Lens esculenta_ Moench A Western temperate
Asia, Greece.
Lettuce _Lactuca sativa_ L. B Southern Europe,
western Asia.
Mushroom _Agaricus campestris_ L. C Northern hemisphere
(Europe).
Okra (gumbo) _Hibiscus esculentus_ L. C Tropical Africa.
Onion _Allium Cepa_ L. A Persia, central Asia.
Onion (Welsh) _Allium fistulosum_ L. C Siberia, Kirghis desert
region to Lake Baikal.
Parsley _Petroselinum Hortense_
Hoffm. C Southern Europe,
Algeria, Lebanon.
Parsnip _Pastinaca sativa_ L. C(?) Central and southern
Europe.
Pea (garden) _Pisum sativum_ L. A Western and central
Asia, southern
Europe, north
India (?).
Pea (wrinkled
garden) _Pisum sativum_ L. F England (?).
Pea (edible
podded) _Pisum sativum_
var. _saccharatum_ Hort. C Holland, etc.
Pepper (red) _Capsicum annuum_ L. E Brazil, western South
America.
Potato _Solanum tuberosum_ L. E Chile, Peru.
Potato (sweet) _Ipomœa Batatas_ Poir. D Tropical America.
Pumpkin _Cucurbita pepo_ L. E Subtropical and tropical
America.
Radish _Raphanus sativus_ L. B Temperate Asia.
Radish (Japanese
giant or
Daikon) _Raphanus sativus_ L. (?) Japan, China.
Rhubarb _Rheum Rhaponticum_ L. C Desert and subalpine
regions of southern
Siberia, Volga River.
Rutabaga _Brassica oleracea_
var. _Napo-Brassica_ L. C Europe.
Salsify or
Oyster plant _Tragopogon porrifolius_ L. C(?) Southeastern Europe
or Algeria.
Spinach _Spinacea oleracea_ L. C Persia, southwestern
Asia.
Spinach (New
Zealand) _Tetragonia expansa_
Thunb. F New Zealand.
Squash
(winter) _Cucurbita maxima_
Duch. E or D Tropical America.
Squash
(summer) _Cucurbita Pepo_ L. E Temperate or tropical
America.
Tomato _Lycopersicum esculentum_
Mill. F Peru.
Tomato (currant
or
raisin) _L. pimpinellifolium_ Dunal F South America.
Turnip _Brassica Rapa_ L. A Europe.
Yams Several sp. including
_Dioscorea alata_ L.
and _D. Batatas_ Decne. B (?) Southeastern Asia,
Africa and South
Pacific Islands.

The following list of the common fruits also gives their native country, period of cultivation, and some additional notes about them. Those marked with a star were found in the markets of New York City by Dr. White, who also revised this list. The letters for the dates are the same as in the list of vegetables:

NAME DATE ORIGIN REMARKS
Achocon F(?) Peru Relative of the violet.
Much esteemed locally.
*Actinidia (?) N. E. Asia, China Tastes something like a
gooseberry, with a fig
flavor.
Akee F W. tropical Africa Much esteemed cooked
fruit in Jamaica.
*Alligator pear E West Indies, W. Excellent salad fruit.
(avocado) South America to
Chile
Anchovy pear West Indies Unripe fruit pickled.
*Apple A E. Europe, W. Asia Very different type common
to China
*Apricot A Central Asia, China Wild species variable.
*Banana A Southern Asia Exists in hundreds
of varieties.
*Blackberry F United States Wild species very variable.
*Blueberry F E. and N. North Four species. Often confused
America with huckleberry.
Breadfruit (?) East Indies Baked and eaten as a
vegetable.
Buffalo berry F N. W. United States Very acid, bright red or
yellow fruit. Local.
*Cactus fig E Mexico, West Indies Common New York City
fruit.
Cambuca (?) Brazil Subacid garden fruit.
Local.
Cashew (?) Tropical America Fruit excellent as preserves.
*Cherry, sour B Asia Minor, S. E. Locally common.
Europe (?)

NAME DATE ORIGIN REMARKS
*Cherry, sweet B S. Europe, E. Asia N. Y. City markets from
California.
Chirimoya E Ecuador, Peru Repeatedly dug up from
prehistoric graves in
Peru.
Chupa-chupa F Colombia Apricot-mango flavored.
Citron B India, S. Asia Very variable.
*Cranberry F E. and N. North Cultivated for about 100
America years.
*Currant, black C N. Europe and Asia Rarely cultivated in America.
*Currant, red C N’th’n Hemisphere White and yellow varieties
are forms.
*Custard apple (?) Tropical America
*Date A Arabia, north Hundreds of varieties.
Africa
Dewberry F South and central Form of blackberry.
North America
Duku (?) Malay Peninsula Fine Malayan fruit, somewhat
turpentine in
flavor.
Durian F Malaysia, East Odor of old cheese, rotten
Indies onions flavored with
turpentine. Delicious except
for odor.
*Fig A Southern Arabia Wild form common.
Genip (?) N. South America Children’s fruit.
Genipap (?) American tropics Used for a refreshing
drink locally.
*Gooseberry C N. Europe, N. Old and New World species
Africa, W. Asia, distinct. New World
United States varieties in some cases
hybrids.
“Goumi” berry (?) Japan, China Delicious acid fruit.
*Grape, New North America Many probably hybrids.
World F
*Grape, Old Western temperate California and Old World
World A Asia grape.
*Grapefruit B Malayan and Pacific Largely cultivated in U. S.
Is., east of Java
Ground cherry F Barbadoes, W. South Three or more species.
America, Asia
Grumixama (?) Brazil Much like bigarreau
cherry.
*Guava E Tropical America Fruits of several species
used.
Haw China, South United Local fruit.
(2 species) (?) States
Icaco F (?) Tropical America Common fruit in San Salvador.
Jaboticaba F Brazil Common fruit tree around
Rio Janeiro.
Jujube, China Very excellent dried fruit
common B in China.
Juneberry F United States, Locally esteemed.
Canada
*Kumquat (?) Cochin-China or Resembles very small
China oranges.
*Lemon B India
*Lime B India Largely used for limade
and citric acid.
*Litchi and S. China, Malay Finest Chinese fruit. Numerous
relatives C Archipelago forms.
*Loquat (?) Central-east’n Much esteemed in China
China and Japan.
Lulo F Colombia Tomatolike fruit.
Mammee
apple (?) West Indies to “St. Domingo apricot.”
Brazil
*Mango A (?) India “Should be eaten in a
bathtub.”
Mangosteen (?) Sunda Islands, King of tropical fruits.
Malay Peninsula
Marang (?) Sulu Archipelago Similar to but much better
than breadfruit.
Marmalade Mexico, N. E. Resembles in taste a ripe,
plum E South America luscious pear.
Matasano Central America “Delicious.”
Medlar C Central Europe to Local applelike fruit.
W. Asia
Monstera F Mexico Pineapple-banana flavor.
Mulberry, Armenia, N. Persia Most valued for fruit.
black B (?)
Mulberry, India, Mongolia Most valued for feeding
white A (?) silk worms.
*Muskmelon C India, Beluchistan, Hundreds of varieties.
W. Africa
Natal plum F South Africa Local fruit for preserves.
*Nectarine (?) Cultivated form of Smooth-skinned.
peach
*Olive A Syria, southern Does not fruit in Florida.
Anatolia and
neighboring
islands
*Orange, king (?) Cochin-China Recently common in New
York City markets.
*Orange, sweet C India Numerous hybrids with
other species.
*Orange, Cochin-China, China
tangerine ?
Papaw F South’n United Local fruit related to the
States custard apple.
Papaw, true E Tropical America Excellent breakfast fruit.
*Passiflora F (?) Tropical America Used locally for ices, fruit
salads, jams, etc.
*Peach E China Hundreds of varieties.
*Pear A Temperate Europe Two species, and hybrids
and Asia, N. between them.
China
*Persimmon (?) Northern China Common in New York
City markets.
*Pineapple E American tropics. Red Spanish and sugar
loaf, common market
varieties.
Piñuela (?) Mexico, C. America Sold cooked in Mexico.
and N. South Common market fruit
America of Caracas.
*Plantain Form of banana.
*Plum A S. Europe, W. Asia, Much hybridized group.
N. America
*Pomegranate A Caucasus, Persia, A seedless variety is
Afghanistan, known.
Beluchistan
*Quince A Persia to Turkestan “Apple of Cydon” (Crete).
*Raspberries, Middle N. America Locally much esteemed
black F American fruit.
*Raspberries, red C N. Europe, Asia, N. Varieties and hybrids of
America two species.
Rose apple B Malaysia, S. Asia Rose-water taste and
perfume.
Rose apple Tropics of Old and Many promising local
relatives New Worlds fruits.
*St.-John’s-Bread A (?) Syria, S. Anatolia, Common dried pod fruit
Barca (?) in New York City.
Sand cherry F N. W. United States Local fruit.
*Sapodilla E West Indies, “Chicle” or chewing gum
Central America, made from its sap.
N. South America
Sapote, black F Mexico Relative of persimmon.
Shaddock B East Indies Large pyriform relative of
grapefruit.
Soursop (?) West Indies Locally esteemed.
Star apple E W. Indies, Central Delicious. “Damson
America plum.”
*Strawberry F Temperate N. At least three species
America, Pacific involved. Mostly
coast of N. and hybrids.
S. America, Europe
Strychnos Bush veldt of South Tastes like clove-flavored
apple F Africa. pears.
*Sweetsop (?) West Indies Locally esteemed.
Tahiti apple (?) Society, Friendly, Common tropical fruit.
Fiji Islands
Tahiti apple South America Common West Indian
relatives (?) fruit.
*Tamarind B (?) Either India or N. Occasional New York
Africa City fruit.
“Tomato,” tree (?) Peruvian Andes Apricot-flavored tomato.
*Watermelon A Tropical and South Often a desert plant.
Africa

2. BEVERAGES

The operation of the Eighteenth Amendment to our Constitution will stop the manufacture in this country of the chief beverages that were made here from plants. All wines and brandies were from the juice of the grape, whiskey from rye and some other cereals, and beer from hops and barley. Our three remaining beverages of practically universal use are none of them produced in the United States, with the exception of a little tea grown in a more or less experimental way.

TEA

It is related in an old legend that a priest going from India into China in 519 A.D. who desired to watch and pray fell asleep instead. In a fit of anger or remorse he cut off his eyelids which were changed into the tea shrub, the leaves of which are said to prevent sleep. Unfortunately for the story tea was known in China more than three thousand years before the date of that legend, and it is very doubtful if it was ever brought from India to China. The wild home of the tea is apparently in the mountainous regions between China and India, but the plant will not stand the frost, so that its cultivation is now mostly in parts of China, Japan, India, Ceylon, Java, and some in Brazil.

The plant is mostly a shrub or occasionally a small tree, with white fragrant flowers and evergreen oval-pointed leaves. All the different kinds of tea are derived from the single species _Camellia Thea_, the differences in color and flavor being due to processes of culture or curing of the leaves.

(_Camellia Thea_)

A shrub or small tree with white fragrant flowers.]

While the use of tea has been known to the Chinese for over four thousand years, its introduction into Europe dates from the days of the Dutch East India Company, who brought some to Holland about 1600, and by the English East India Company, who sent some from China to England in 1669. It fetched at that time 60 shillings per pound for the common black kinds and as much as £5 to £10 per pound for the finer kinds. It was almost fifty years, or about 1715, before the price fell to 15 shillings per pound. From that time until the present there has been a tremendous increase in its use, although then as now the great bulk of the world’s tea is used by the Mongolians and Anglo-Saxons. Just before the war over 700 million pounds comprised the annual crop of tea. As its use became general the English put a tax upon its importation into Great Britain or its colonies, with results here that we all know.

The cultivation of tea is restricted to those regions where there is a large and frequent rainfall as well as a high temperature. It will not grow in marshy places such as rice prefers, but needs light, well-drained soils. The plant is propagated only from seeds which are sown in nurseries, and the young plants set out in the tea fields about four and a half feet apart each way. In two years they are bushes from four to six feet tall when they are cut back to a foot high. The increased vigor of the bush from this severe cutting back results in a dense bush, from which leaves are plucked from the third year in small quantity. Not until after the sixth or seventh year is there a normal yield, which in an average year would be from four to five ounces of finished tea. A poor yield of leaves would average about 400 pounds of tea per acre, good yields going as high as a thousand pounds or even more than that. The tea fields must be kept free of weeds, a tremendous task in a moist tropical region, which demands cultivation about nine times a year. The expense of properly setting out and maintaining a tea plantation is therefore considerable.

The plucking of tea leaves is a fine art beginning with the starting of new growth and continuing every few days until growth stops. In certain regions growth is practically continuous and plucking also, but in most regions the plant has an obvious resting period, when it is pruned back. A properly cared for plant may last as long as forty or fifty years. In a modern tea plantation the only part of the process of tea making that involves handling is the plucking of the leaves, largely done by women and children. The leaves are then spread on racks and allowed to partly wither, after which they are put between rollers so as to crush the tissue, thereby allowing the more rapid escape of water. After rolling, all black teas are again spread out when oxidation of their juices changes their color, but green teas omit this second spreading out and sometimes even the first. The oxidation of black teas is produced by an enzyme in the juice, in green tea this process is stopped by subjecting the leaf at once to steam. This kills the enzyme but preserves the green color of the leaf. In the black tea the enzyme is allowed to work for two or three hours when the leaves are again slightly rolled to seal in the juices and the leaves are then subjected to a current of air progressively warmer until it reaches a temperature well above boiling point. Once the temperature reaches about 240 degrees the process goes on only for about twenty minutes when the leaves are perfectly dry and crisp. The different sized leaves, buds, twigs, etc., are then sorted by mechanical sifters and the finished tea is ready for packing. Experts declare that there is no difference between broken and unbroken leaves, and if there is any the flavor is probably better from broken leaves. From the upper three leaves and their bud the finest teas are made, but from adjoining plantations, even from the same plants at different seasons or different pluckings, vastly different teas are often produced. In different regions the process varies slightly in its details, and different soils and culture undoubtedly affect the flavor of tea, just as they do other crops. Some of these local conditions are of great value, and the skillful handling of the leaves is as much of a fine art as it is a science. Unlike wines, tea is best when fresh and much of the romance of the sea centers around the China clippers which made remarkably swift passages between China and England around the Cape of Good Hope. With the opening of the Suez Canal competition for increased speed became still more keen, but steam vessels took the romance out of the trade. Much of the tea used in the United States comes from Japan and does not go through London, which for over two hundred years was the tea market of the world.

The thing for which we drink tea is an alkaloid in its leaves that is pleasant to the taste and refreshing to the senses. It is released in boiling water in a very few minutes, but if tea is allowed to stay in water longer than this, tannic acid is also released. This is a substance found in the bark of certain trees and is used in tanning leather. As 10 per cent of the leaf of tea consists of this substance it may readily be seen how easily improper methods of making tea will render it not a refreshing and delightful beverage but an actual poison to the digestive tract.

COFFEE

Like tea and chocolate, coffee also comes from a plant that can only be grown in the tropics. Its original home was in or near Arabia and its botanical name is _Coffea arabica_. There are, however, other species of the genus that produce coffee, but _Coffea arabica_ is still its chief source. The plant is

(_Coffea arabica_)

The coffee beans are contained in a red berry.]

now grown throughout the tropical world, but it does not thrive so well along the coast as it does at elevations of a thousand feet or so, where, in America at least, the best coffee is produced. The plant is a shrub or small tree, usually not over 12 to 15 feet tall, with opposite leaves and small tubular flowers, followed by a bright red berry, which contains the coffee “beans.” The flowers and berries are in small clusters in the axils of the leaves. Its use among the natives appears to date from time immemorial, but the Crusaders did not know it, nor was it introduced into Europe much before 1670. Its annual consumption is now well over two billion pounds, nearly half of which is used in this country. We use over ten pounds a year for each man, woman and child in the country, or nearly ten times the per capita consumption in England. Brazil produces over half the world’s total supply and consequently controls the coffee markets of the world. The plant was first brought into South America by the Dutch, who in 1718 brought it to Surinam. From there it spread quickly into the West Indies and Central America.

The coffee berries are collected once a year and spread out to dry, after which the two seeds are taken out. This is the simple method of all the smaller plantation owners, but a modern Brazilian coffee plantation follows a very different procedure. The berries are put in tanks of water, or even conveyed by water flues from the fields, and allowed to sink, which all mature berries will do. They are then subjected to a pulping machine which after another water bath frees the beans from the pulp. The former are still covered by a parchmentlike skin which, after drying of the beans, is removed by rolling machines. The coffee is then ready for export, but not for use until it is roasted. This is a delicate operation not understood except by experts, and should not be done until just before the coffee is ready to be used.

The average yield per plant is not over two pounds of finished coffee a year, but larger yields from specially rich soils are known. The plant is rather wide-spreading and not over five or six hundred specimens to the acre can be grown.

The so-called Mocha coffee is obtained in Arabia, where Turkish and Egyptian traders buy the crop on the plants and superintend its picking and preparation, which is by the dry method. Not much of this ever reaches the American markets, and the total amount of coffee now produced in Arabia, its ancestral home, is negligible.

CHOCOLATE

Unlike tea and coffee, chocolate is a native of the New World and was noticed by nearly all the first explorers. It grows wild in the hot, steaming forests of the Orinoco and Amazon river basins, although it was known in Mexico and Yucatan as a cultivated plant from very early times. By far the largest supply still comes from tropical America, although it is grown in the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, and West Africa. It must have been cultivated for many centuries before the discovery of America, as scores of varieties are known, all derived from one species. This is _Theobroma cacao_, and both the generic and specific names are interesting. _Theobroma_ is Greek for god food, so highly did all natives regard the plant, and _cacao_ is the Spanish adaptation for the original Mexican name of the tree. Throughout Spanish or Portuguese-speaking tropical America the tree is always spoken of as _cacao_.

The chocolate tree is scarcely over twenty-five feet tall, has large glossy leaves and bears rather small flowers directly on the branches or trunk. This unusual mode of flowering, common in rain forests, results in the large sculptured pods appearing as if artificially attached to the plant. Each pod, which may be 6 to 9 inches long, contains about fifty seeds--the chocolate bean of commerce.

When the beans first come out of the pod they are covered with a slimy mucilaginous substance and are very bitter. To remove this the beans are fermented or “sweated,” usually by burying in the earth or piled in special houses for the purpose. After several days, sometimes as long as two weeks, the beans lose the mucilage, most of their bitter flavor and often change their color. After this they are dried and are ready for roasting, which drives off still more of their bitter flavor. Chocolate is made from the ground-up beans containing nearly all the oil, which is the chief constituent, while cocoa is the same as chocolate with a large part of the oil removed. As in tea and coffee, there is an alkaloid in chocolate for which, with its fat, the beverage is mostly used.

Very little chocolate is now collected from wild plants, and cacao plantations are important projects in tropical agriculture. Because of its many varieties, some nearly worthless, the business was rather speculative until a few good sorts were perpetuated. Much valuable work on this plant and the isolation of many good varieties has been done by the Department of Agriculture in Jamaica, British West Indies. Cacao plantations are usually in moist, low regions near the coast, preferably protected from strong winds, to which the plant objects. The trees are set about ten to fifteen feet apart each way and begin bearing after the fifth or sixth year. The young plants are always shaded, often by bananas, which are cut off as the trees mature. The tree will not thrive unless the temperature is about 80 degrees or more and there should be preferably 75 inches of rainfall a year, about twice that at New York. Chocolate-growing regions are apt to be unhealthy for whites, and native labor is practically always used. The business is very profitable, but still somewhat speculative.

3. FIBERS

Not only do plants furnish us with food and drink, but most of our clothing is made from plant products. There is annually produced twice as much cotton as wool, while linen is made from the fibers in the stem of the flax plant, which is also the source of linseed oil. Fibers occur in many different parts of plants, but most often in the stem, or in the bark of the stem. Some occur in the wood itself, as for instance that in spruce wood, from which news paper is made. Others are found in the attachments of the seed, such as cotton. Some are very coarse, such as that of _Carex stricta_, a swamp sedge from which Crex rugs are woven. Others like that of the leaves of the pineapple are as fine as silk, and in the Philippine Islands where much pineapple fiber is produced, some of the most beautiful undergarments and women’s wear are made from it. Again, others, such as Manila hemp, furnish us with cordage of great strength.

COTTON

It has been stated, perhaps a little rashly, that the value of the cotton crop in our Southern States exceeds all other agricultural products of the country. Whether this be true or no matters not, as cotton production and manufacture is certainly one of the most important industries of the world. Our own New England mills and those in Lancashire total an enormous volume of manufactured cotton goods, and what the stoppage of the cotton crop means to these industrial centers was shown even so far back as the Civil War, when the “cotton riots” in Lancashire were noised all over the world. Cotton is the most important of all fiber plants.

There are several different kinds of commercially important cottons, and perhaps dozens of others, all derived from the genus _Gossypium_, a relative of our common garden mallows belonging to the _Malvaceæ_. By far the most valuable is Sea Island cotton, derived from _Gossypium barbadense_, which is probably a native of the West Indies, although really wild plants are yet to be discovered. It is the kind, of which scores of varieties are known in cultivation, that is grown mostly along our southeastern coastal States. Next in value, but cultivated in greater quantity because larger areas are suited to it, is _Gossypium hirsutum_. The fiber is a little shorter, but the total amount of cotton derived from this species probably exceeds that from all other kinds. It is the cotton grown mostly in upland Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, and the wild home of this species is supposed to be America, although it, too, has never been found in the wild state. The third cotton plant is _Gossypium herbaceum_, a native of India, and the origin of many varieties now grown in that country. It has a shorter fiber and is worth about one-third the price of Sea Island cotton. From Abyssinia and neighboring regions comes the fourth important cotton plant, _Gossypium arboreum_, differing from the others in being a small tree. All the others are shrubby, while _G. herbaceum_ is merely a woody herb. These different plants have been tried in the countries suited to cotton raising, but, generally speaking, the chief crop from each is produced in the country nearest the supposed wild home of it.

In all of them the fiber is really an appendage of the seeds, and each pod as it splits open is found to be packed full of a white cottony mass of these fibers with the seeds attached. These white masses of cotton, or bolls, have to be picked by hand, as no really successful machine has ever been found for this purpose. Women and children do a large part of the picking, and the wastage due to careless picking is tremendous. The whole value of the cotton crop depends upon an invention by Eli Whitney, an American, of a machine to separate the cotton from its seed. This “ginning” machine is now much perfected and, in America at least, is the chief method of separation of fiber and seed. In India and for certain other varieties a different type of machine, known as the Macarthy gin, is employed. The latter is used in America also for some of the long-fiber Sea Island cottons. With the baling of the cotton the work of the grower is over and the product is ready for the manufacturers. The resulting seed, after ginning, once little valued, is now an important plant product, cottonseed oil, cattle feeds, soap, cottolene, fuel oil, and fertilizers being derived from it. Its value in the United States now totals millions of dollars annually.

In growing cotton in America seeds are sown in April, and the beautiful yellow flowers with a red center bloom about June or July, followed in August by the pod. This splits open and is ready for picking by September and October. The plants are grown in rows four feet apart and are set one foot apart in the row. Clean cultivation is absolutely necessary, and in first-class plantations all weeds are kept out. The plant needs a rich deep soil.

HEMP AND CORDAGE

There are a variety of plants which furnish products known as hemp, but commercially only three are of much importance, the plant universally known under that name, the Manila hemp, and sisal. All of them are used chiefly for cordage.