CASSAVA EOOT — SWEET POTATO. 233 



converted into meal, it is placed in a sort of large pan, or on a 

 similar plate with a low rim, and stirred backwards and forwards, 

 as well to favour the regular diffusion of heat throughout the 

 mass, as to prevent its burning or uniting in lumps. The juice 

 is allowed to subside for two or three days, and then drawn off, 

 when a fine starch is found deposited in the vessel. From this 

 juice is also prepared a pungent sweetish sauce called cassaripe, 

 which is much esteemed by the natives, and also highly relished 

 by Europeans. The bitter cassava is highly poisonous, and no 

 culinary process will deprive the pulp of its deleterious proper- 

 ties, unless the juice be previously expressed. All kinds of 

 animals as well' as man are poisoned by eating the roots, but 

 particularly by drinking the juice of the bitter cassava. Agoutis, 

 however, lapas, and even pigs, may and do feed on the roots 

 fresh in the soil, and when covered with earth, without apparent 

 injury. Pigeons have been seen to drop dead, without even 

 tasting it, from merely perching on the margin of the vessel 

 containing the juice. The active principle, or poisonous agent 

 of the bitter cassava is hydrocyanic acid, which is distinctly per- 

 ceptible from its strong smell. The best counterpoison, perhaps, 

 is salt water. Sweet cassava comes to maturity within six or 

 nine months, bitter cassava within ten or fourteen months ; the 

 latter may also be allowed to stand over for two years and above, 

 when planted in a well-drained soil. The cassava may be grown 

 in soils of moderate fertility; it however thrives best in clay 

 loam, and an exposed situation, as on the slope of hills. It is 

 propagated by cuttings, which must be planted in the driest 

 season — in March, for instance. The soil having been well pre- 

 pared, holes are dug about six inches deep, and the cuttings 

 thrust in. The yield in good soil is from fifteen to twenty 

 barrels an acre. Cassava does not keep more than two or three 

 days, and must be manufactured into cakes and meal as soon as 

 possible. A large quantity of the starch is imported from the 

 Main, particularly from Maturin. 



Convolvulacece. — Sweet potato {Batatas edulis, Ipomea ba- 

 tatas). — This is a very delicate and wholesome tubercle, which is 

 very extensively cultivated in some of the old islands ; but in 

 Trinidad it is raised on a very small scale, although it thrives 

 well in the light loams of the colony. Barbadoes, St. Kitts, 

 Grenada, and St. Vincent have the privilege of supplying the 



