422 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



their hand-mills. The juice of the date-tree is procured by 

 cutting off the head or crown of the more vigorous plants, and 

 scooping the top of the trunk into the shape of a basin, where 

 the sap in ascending lodges itself at the rate of 3 or 4 quarts 

 during the first week or fortnight, after which the quantity 

 daily diminishes, and at the end of six weeks or two months 

 the tree becomes dry, and serves for timber or firewood. This 

 liquor, which has a more luscious sweetness than honey, is of 

 the consistence of thin syrup, but quickly becomes tart and 

 ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving upon distil- 

 lation an agreeable spirit, or araky, which is the general name 

 in the East for all hot liquors extracted by the alembic.* 

 P. faririifera affords a starchy substance extracted from the 

 interior of the stem. It is called congee in India. It is only 

 used in times of scarcity. It is less nutritive than sago, and 

 less palatable. P. sylvestris, the wild date of Bengal, yields 

 sugar. Saguerus saccharifer is a valuable sago-palm, from 

 which a large quantity of saccharine juice is obtained when the 

 spadix is wounded, and from this juice sugar is obtained. 

 Sagus ; of this genus several species supply the kind of starch 

 named sago. S. Rumpliii is the sago-palm of Malacca. 



Alismacece, Water-plantain order. The fleshy rhizomes 

 in the genera Alisma and Sagittaria are edible. The native 

 species of Alisma are A. plantago, the greater water-plantain, 

 A. natans, the floating water-plantain, and A. ranunculoides, 

 the lesser water-plantain. Sagittaria sagittifolia is a native of 

 England and Ireland, and is common in many parts of the 

 world in Siberia, Japan, China, and Virginia. The bulb, 

 which fixes itself in the solid earth below the mud of the water 

 in which it grows, constitutes an article of food among the 

 Chinese, and upon that account they cultivate it extensively. 



* Balfour, Class-Book of Botany, ' p. 937; and Loudon, 'Encyclopaedia 

 of Plants, 'p. 829. 



