HABIT AND CULTIVATION OF VANILLA 201 



ing from the seed when pressed), they are packed in sacks or 

 ( ases, and sent as soon as possible to the market, a rapid sale 

 being extremely desirable, as it is verj^ difficult to preserve 

 them from insects, more particularly from the cockroaches. 



Cacao is chiefly used under the form of chocolate. The 

 beans are roasted, finely ground, so as to convert them into a 

 ])erfectly smooth paste, and improved in flavour by the addition 

 of spices, such as the sweet-scented vanilla, a short notice of 

 which will not be out of place. 



Like our parasitical ivy, the Vanilla aromatica, a native of 

 torrid America, climbs the summits of the highest forest-trees, 

 or creeps along the moist rock crevices on the banks of rivulets. 



The stalk, which is .about as thick as a finger, bears at each 

 joint a lanceolate and ribbed leaf, twelve inches long and three 

 inches broad. The large flowers, which fill the forest with 

 their delicious odours, are white intermixed with stripes of red 

 and yellow, and are succeeded by long and slender pods con- 

 taining many seeds imbedded in a thick oily and balsamic pulp. 

 These pods seldom ripen in the wild state, for the dainty monkey 

 knows no greater delicacy, and his agility in climbing almost 

 always enables him to anticipate man. 



At present the vanilla is cultivated not only in Mexico, where 

 the villages Papantla and Misantla annually produce about 

 19,000 pounds or two millions of pods (worth at Vera Cruz a 

 shilling the pod), but in Java, where the industrious Dutch have 

 acclimatised it since 1819. 



It is planted under shady trees on a damp ground, and grows 

 luxuriantly ; but as a thousand blossoms on an average produce 

 but one pod, it must always remain a rare and costly spice. 



Had the ancients known vanilla they would, no doubt, have 

 deemed it more worthy to be the food of the Olympic gods than 

 their fabled ambrosia. 



