256 TRINIDAD. 



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 litter cassava is highly poisonous, and no 

 culinary process will deprive the pulp of its deleterious properties, 

 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, 

 lapos, 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 perceptible 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 prepared, 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. 



ConvolvulaceoR Sweet potato (Batatas edulis, Ipomea batatas). 

 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 market of 

 Trinidad with yams and sweet potatoes to the amount of nearly 

 1,200 sterling yearly. 



Aracece Tanias (Qaladium esculentum and Oolocasia anti- 

 quorum). Several species of caladium are cultivated in Trinidad; 

 some of them as the plantain tania (so called from its size and 

 form), grow very large, and are an excellent food. The tania 



