The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom

The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom, by P.L. Simmonds, is a practical treatise and handbook of reference for the colonist, manufacturer, merchant, and consumer, on the cultivation, preparation for shipment, and commercial value of the various substances obtained from trees and plants. The text says there are four sorts of cacao in every crop: the ripe and in good condition, the green but sound, the worm-eaten, and the rotten. The text says the cacao must always be exposed to the sun on the fourth day after it has been gathered, and that this exposure should be daily repeated until it is perfectly dry.

The text quotes Liebig saying that we shall never certainly be able to discover how men were led to the use of the hot infusion of the leaves of a certain shrub (tea), or of a decoction of certain roasted seeds (coffee). The writer says he shall extract largely from a very valuable report drawn up by Dr. John Shier, agricultural chemist, of Demerara, and submitted to the Governor of that colony in 1847, on the starch-producing plants.