COFFEE. CHOCOLATE.

either green or black tea; nor has there been in green tea discovered the least particle of copper. The injurious effects of tea, if indeed any be produced by it, may be attributed, we presume, to the hot water rather than to the tea.

COFFEE is a seed or berry, brought originally from Arabia Felix, used for making a drink of the same nature. By coffee we usually mean the drink itself, prepared from those berries. Its origin is not well known; some ascribe it to the prior of a monastery, who, being informed by a goatherd that his cattle, sometimes browzing on this tree, would wake and caper all night, became desirous of proving its virtue; accordingly he first tried it on his monks, to prevent their sleeping at matins. Others refer the invention of coffee to the Persians, from whom it was learned in the fifteenth century, by a mufti of Aden, a city near the mouth of the Red Sea; and who, having tried its virtues himself, and found that it dissipated the fumes which oppress the head, inspired joy, opened the bowels, and prevented sleep without his being incommoded by it, recommended it first to his dervises, with whom he used to spend the night in prayer. Their example brought coffee into fashion at Aden: there the professors of the law, for study, artisans to work, travellers to walk in the night, in short, almost every person drank coffee. Thence it passed to Mecca, and from Arabia Felix to Cairo, and from Egypt to Syria and Constantinople. Thevenot, the traveller, was the first who brought it into France; and a Greek servant, called Pasqua, brought it into England in 1652, and setting up the profession of coffee-man, first introduced the drink among us; though some say Dr. Harvey had used it before.

CHOCOLATE, a kind of cake, or confection, prepared from certain drugs; the basis or principle whereof is the cacao nut, or chocolate nut, a nut about the size of an almond, of which from thirty to a hundred are contained in a pod shaped like a cucumber, and very different from the cocoa nut, with which it is apt to be confounded, from the similarity of pronunciation. The drink prepared from the cake is also called chocolate, and is usually drunk warm, being esteemed not only an excellent nourishing food, but also a good medicine; or at least a diet for keeping up the warmth of the stomach, and assisting digestion. The Spaniards were the first who brought chocolate into use in Europe. The thin shell of the cacao nut, ground like coffee, and boiled in water, yields a beverage resembling chocolate, but less rich, and is used as an economical and wholesome breakfast by the name of cacao; and for delicate stomachs is much better adapted than the oleous compound.

RICE, oryza, a grain or seed. It is frequent in Greece, Italy, Spain, the East and West Indies, and America. The grains of rice, which grow in clusters are severally inclosed in yellow rough cases. Rice

grows in marshy places. A weak spirit, termed arrack, is drawn from rice. Rice is less nutritious than wheat, and forms a very useful light food for patients under the influence of medicine. The best rice comes from Carolina; an inferior sort from the East Indies. The mountain rice, the paddy of the Hindoos, grows in mountainous and other dry soils of India.

It is said that America is indebted for this grain to a small bag of it, which was formerly given as a present from a Mr. Dubois, treasurer of the East India Company, to a Carolina merchant.

A wet and morassy soil and hot climate appear, in general, necessa ry to the cultivation of rice. The parts of the farms or plantations, in which it is grown, are usually so situated, as to admit of being flooded; and, in many places, reservoirs of water are formed for this purpose. These reservoirs have sluices, by which the rice fields may be inundated at pleasure. In reaping the crop, the laborers generally work knee deep in water and mud; and as the rice is cut, the sheaves are put on drays, which follow the reapers, and are thus carried out to be spread on the dry ground. The rice thus produced has the name of marsh rice, and is that which is chiefly exported to Europe.

The YAM is a root, the produce of a creeping plant whose stalks proceed to a considerable distance, putting out roots from the joints, by which it becomes soon multiplied. The roots consist of blue or brown round or oblong tubers, each tuber weighing two or three or sometimes, twenty pounds. They vary greatly however, in size, shape, and color. The inside of the yam is white, and in mealiness resembles the potato. When dressed they are somewhat like that root; they are considered nutritive, and easy of digestion; they are the common food of the slaves in the West Indies; and if kept from moisture may be preserved for many years. They are ground into flour, and made into bread and puddings. The plant is propagated by cuttings, precisely the same as we propagate potatoes, namely, by cutting the root in pieces, preserving an eye in each piece.

The PLANTAIN or BANANA, (though, they are thought by some to be distinct species,) are generally spoken of together, as having more points of resemblance than of

PLANTAIN OR BANANA.

twenty feet. The leaves are in a cluster at the top; they are very large, being about six feet long and two feet broad; the middle rib is strong, but the rest of the leaf is tender, and apt to be torn by the wind. The leaves grow with great rapidity after the stalk has attained its proper height. The spike of flowers rises from the centre of the leaves to the height of about four feet. At first, the flowers are enclosed in a sheath, but, as they come to maturity, that drops off. The fruit is about an inch in diameter, eight or nine inches long, and bent a little on one side. As it ripens, it turns yellow; and when ripe, it is filled with a pulp of a luscious sweet taste.

The Banana is a shorter and rounder fruit than the plantain: the stem is also different,-that of the plantain being wholly green, while the banana is spotted with purple. The banana is not so luscious as the plantain, but is more agreeable.

The banana is found in equinoctial Asia and America, in the tropical parts of Africa, and of the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, wherever the mean heat of the year exceeds 75° of Farenheit. The banana is one of the most important and interesting objects for the cultivation of man.

The banana is not known in an uncultivated state. The plant is propagated by suckers. It is ten or eleven months after the sucker has been planted, before the fruit is ready to gather. The stalk is then cut, from which sprouts put forth which bear fruit again in three months. They are exceedingly productive. A spot of a little more than a thousand square feet will contain from thirty to forty banana plants. A cluster of bananas produced on a single plant, often contains from one hundred and sixty, to one hundred and eighty pounds. But reckoning the weight of a cluster only at forty pounds, such a plantation would produce more than four thousand pounds of nutritive substance. M. Humboldt calculates that as 33 pounds of wheat, and 99 pounds of potatoes require the same space as that in which four thousand pounds of bananas are grown, the produce of bananas is consequently to that of wheat as 133: 1, and to that of potatoes as 44: 1.

The ripe fruit of the banana is preserved like the fig, by being dried in the sun. This dried banana is an agreeable and healthy aliment. Meal is extracted from the fruit, by cutting it in slices, drying it in the sun, and then pounding it.

BREAD FRUIT TREE.-ORANGES.

BREAD-FRUIT Tree, a tree grow. ing at Otaheité and other South Sea Islands; it was brought to the notice of Europeans by Captain Cook. It has the height and proportion of a middlesized oak; the leaves are often a foot and a half long, oblong shaped, and in color, consistence, and sinuosity, resembling those of the fig-tree, and exuding a milky juice on fracture. The fruit is about the size and shape of a new-born child's head, covered with a reticulate skin, and containing a core in its centre. The eatable part lies between the skin and the core, is as white as snow, and of the consistence of new bread. prepared for food in various ways. It affords much nourishment, and therefore is esteemed very proper for laboring people. Attempts have been latterly made to naturalize this tree in the West

Indies; it can only, it is said, be propagated by suckers or layers. CHEESE, BUTTER, See article Agriculture-Management of the Dairy.

HONEY, See bees.

SECTION. II.

FRUITS.

ORANGES make a considerable article of merchandize. Those called China oranges were first brought into Europe from China by the Portuguese; and it is said, that the very tree whence all the European orange trees of this sort were produced, is still preserved at Lisbon. The China orange is not so hardy as the Seville, and rarely produces good fruit in England; nor are the leaves of the tree near so large or beautiful as those of the Seville orange. There is a great variety of sweet oranges both in the East and West Indies, some of which are much more esteemed than those now in Europe but as they are much tenderer, they will not thrive in that country with the common culture. There are several varieties of the orange tree, but they may all be referred to the sweet, or China orange, and the bitter, or Seville orange, the juice of which is sour. Those most esteemed, and

CITRON. LEMON.-OLIVE.

that are made presents of as rarities in the Indies, are no larger than a billiard-ball. The juice is cooling and antiscorbutic.

The seeds of oranges ought never to be swallowed; a case of a young lady in England has recently occurred, in which her death was in all likelihood caused by several orange seeds lodgings for a long time in the intestines.

The CITRON is the produce of a tree, much resembling the lemon tree. A citron has the same qualities as the lemon, but it is larger, higher colored, and has a brisker smell. It is an agreeable fruit, and serves, like that, to cool and quench the thirst. Genoa is the great European nursery for this sort of fruit. The Florentine citron, Miller says, is in such great esteem, that the single fruits are sold at Florence for two shillings each, and are sent as presents to the courts of princes. This kind is not to be had in perfection in any other part of Italy except the plain between Pisa and Leghorn, and if transplanted to other parts it loses much of its excellence. From citrons are produced essences, oils, confections, waters, &c.

The LEMON is a variety of the citron tree. There are several sub-varieties of this tree, some of which are sour, and others again sweet. The lemon grows naturally in that part of India, which is situated beyond the Ganges; but its transmigration to Europe belongs to the invasion of the West by those mighty caliphs, who from the heart of Southern Asia, extended their conquests to the foot of the Pyrenees, leaving every where traces of their power and of their knowledge. The lemon, thus transported by the Arabs into every part of their vast empire, where it would grow, was found by the crusaders in Syria and Palestine, towards the end of the twelfth century. By them it was introduced into Sicily and Italy; though it is probable that at the same period, it was already multiplied in Africa and Spain.

Lemon-juice is one of the most cooling and antiseptic vegetable productions it improves the taste, and corrects the putrid tendency of animal food in the summer. Hence, lemonade affords a grateful and cooling beverage for febrile patients (but it should be used moderately, for all acids have a tendency to produce stone, gravel, and gout, when too freely taken.)

Essence of Lemon is obtained from the exterior rind of the fruit, either by compression or distillation; it is often an impure essential oil, as found in the shops.

The OLIVE, is an evergreen tree common to the woods of the south of France, Spain and Italy. It rarely exceeds twenty feet in height; it has lanceolate, grey, ferruginous leaves, downy or silvery underneath; the flowers are small and white; the fruit is a drupe of an oblong form, about an inch and a half or two inches long, and black when ripe. Of the olive there are several varieties. Abroad it is propagated by shoots, which are grafted to produce good sorts. In England it is propagated by layers. The most valuable part of this tree is the fruit; from which, when ripe, is obtained the olive oil, so well and universally known as food and as a medicine. Olives are brought into this country pickled as a condiment; but they are neither good nor wholesome food.