74 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb 



sacks, six feet long or more ; and at the bottom 

 of the sack they suspend a large stone, l)y which 

 the flexible sides are contracted, and then out 

 pours the cassava-juice in a pan placed below to 

 receive it. This juice is poisonous, sir, highly 

 poisonous, and vei'y volatile. Then, my dear 

 madam, it is incarcerated in water, and the i-esi- 

 duum, after the volatile part, the poison, is evap- 

 orated, is the innocuous farina, which looks like 

 small crumbs of bread, and which Ave call tapio- 

 ca. Tlie best kind of tapioca comes from Rio, 

 which is, I believe, about five thousand five hun- 

 dred miles from New York ; so we must put 

 down that as a little more than one-fifth of our 

 voyage around the pudding." 



This made our eldest open his eyes. 



"Eggs and milk," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, 

 "are home productions ; but sugar, refined su- 

 gar, is made partly of the moist and sweet yel- 

 low sugar of Louisiana, partly of the hard and 

 dry sugar of the "West Indies. I will not go into 

 the proces.s of refining sugar now, but I may ob- 

 serve here, that the sugar we get from Louisiana, 

 if refined and made into a loaf, would be quite 

 soft, with large loose crystals ; while the Havana 

 sugar, su))jected to the same treatment, would 

 make a Avhite cone almost as compact and hard 

 as granite. But wc have made a trij^ to the An- 

 tilles for our sugar, and so you may add fifteen 

 hundred miles more for the saccharum.'''' 



"That is equal to neaidy one-third of the cir- 

 cumference of the pudding we live upon, doc- 

 tor." 



"Vanilla," continued the doctor, "with which 

 this pudding is so delightfully flavored, is the 

 bean of a vine that grows wild in the multitudi- 

 inous forests of Venezuela, New Grenada, Guiana, 

 .and, in fact, throughout South America. The 

 Icng pod, which looks like the scabbard of a 

 sword, suggested the name to tlie Spaniards; 

 vayna meaning scabbard, from which comes the 

 diminutive vanilla, or little scabbard — appropri- 

 ate eiiough, as every one Avill allow. These beans, 

 vrliich are worth here from six to twenty dollars 

 a pound, could be as easily cultivated as hops in 

 that climate ; but the indolence of the people is 

 so great, that not one Venezuelian has been 

 found with sufficient enterprise to set out one 

 acre of vanilla, which would j'ield liira a small 

 fortune every year. No, sir. The poor ;7f'07i5, or 

 peasants, raise their garabanzas for daily use, but 

 beyond that they never look. They plant their 

 crops in the footsteps of their ancestors, and, if 

 it had not been for their ancestors, they would 

 probably have browsed on the wild grass of the 

 llanos or plains. Ah ! there are a great many 

 such bobs hanging at the tail of some ancestral 

 kite, even in this great city, my dear, learned 

 friend." 



"True, doctor, you are riglit, thci-e." 



"Well, sir, the vanilla is gathered from the 

 wild vines in the woods. Off" goes the hidalgo, 

 proud of his noble ancestry, and toils home under 

 a back-load of the refuse beans from the trees, 

 after the red monkey has had his pick of the best. 

 A few reals pay him for the day's work, and 

 then, hey for the cock-pit ! There, Signor 01- 

 fogie meets the Marquis de Shinplaster, or the 

 Padre Corcorochi, and of course gets whistled out 

 of his earnings with the first click of the gaifs. 

 Then back he goes to his miserable hammock. 



and so ends his year's labor. That, sir, is the 

 history of the flavoring, and you will have to al- 

 low a stretch across the Caribbean, say twenty- 

 five hundred miles, for the vanilla." 



"We are getting pretty well round, doctor." 

 "Then we have sauce here, wine-sauce — Ten- 

 eriffe, I should say, by the flavor. 



' from beneath the cliflF 



Of sunny-sided TeneriiTe, 

 And ripened in tlie l)liuk 

 Of India's sun.' 



We must take four thousand miles at least for 

 the wine, my learned friend, and say nothing of 

 the rest of the sauce." 



"Except the nutmeg, doctor." 



"Thank you, my dear yovmg friend ; thank you. 

 The nutmeg ! To the Spice Islands in the In- 

 dian Ocean we are indebted for our nutmegs. 

 Our old original Knickerbockers, the web- footed 

 Dutchmen, have the monopoly of this trade. 

 Every nutmeg has paid toll at the Hague before 

 it yields its aroma to our graters. The Spice Is- 

 lands ! The almost fabulous Moluccas, where 

 neither corn nor rice will grow ; where the only 

 quadrupeds they have are the odorous goats that 

 breathe the fragrant air, and the musky crocko- 

 diles that bathe in the high-seasoned waters. The 

 Moluccas, 



' the isles 



Of Tern.ite and Tidore, whence merchants bring 

 Their spicy drugs.' 



There, sir ! Milton, sir. From Ternate and Ti- 

 dore, and the rest of that mavellous cluster of is- 

 lands, we get our nutmegs, our mace, and our 

 cloves. Add twelve thousand miles at least to 

 the circumference of the pudding for the nut- 

 meg." 



"This is getting to be a pretty lai-ge pudding, 

 doctor." 



"Yes, sir. We have travelled already twenty- 

 five thousand five hundred miles around it, and 

 now let us re-circumnavigate and come back by 

 the way of Mexico, so tliat we can get a silver 

 spoon, and penetrate into the interior." — The 

 Wine Press, 



CEMENTED CELLAKS. 



Frequent inquiries arc made on this subject. 

 Cellars plastered at the sides and on the bottom 

 with hydraulic cement will keep out the water 

 without a drain, and will exclude rats, provided 

 the work has been done in the best manner. Im- 

 perfectly executed, the water will leak in : and 

 if the coat is too thin or too soft, rats will exca- 

 vate beneath it, and then crack it ott" ))y piece- 

 meal. It is unnecessary to inform our readers 

 that the very best material is to be used ; but 

 some are not enough aware of the importance of 

 giving it sufficient thickness. On dry and hard 

 gravel, it may do well to apply the mortar at 

 once to the excavated face of earth ; l)ut usually 

 it is much better to cover the cellar liottom with 

 paving stones, and where rather inclined to 

 dampness, with two or three successive layers, 

 the last of which may be quite small, or even 

 coarse gravel will do. The mortar, made rather 

 thin, is then spread smoothly over. In a few 

 months the whole will assume a flinty hardness, 

 through which no rat, with all the cunning of a 

 politician, can ever make his way. It will be as 

 dry as a floor, and fruit, vegetables, and other 



