CHAPTER XV 



FOOD PLANTS 



Habitat. 



History of 

 the plant. 



Cultivation 

 in the West 

 Indies. 



Tapioca. 



Productive- 

 ness of the 

 plant. 



Cassava. JManihot utilissima 



The cassava plant is a native of South America, where it 

 is found from Guiana and New Granada to Brazil and Peru. 

 Its cultivation by the inhabitants of tropical America dates 

 far back, and it has always formed, a great portion of their 

 food. From the grated tuberous roots they obtained not 

 only meal and bread, but they also manufactured by fermen- 

 tation an intoxicating drink called piwarri from cassava 

 cakes, which were first chewed and then spat into the wooden 

 fermenting vessels. The plant is now cultivated e.xtensively 

 throughout the West Indies, and more especially in Domi- 

 nica, and the French colonies of Martinique and Guada- 

 loupe, where its meal enters largely into the diet of the people. 

 It contains much starch and other nourishing matters ; and 

 tapioca, one of its products, is well known as a light and 

 easily digestible article of food for children and invalids. 

 The cultivation is simple and inexpensive, and the returns 

 are large ; indeed, the plant is said to be one of the most 

 productive in the world, an acre of cassava yielding more 

 nutritive matters than six times the same area under wheat. 

 Cassava is a shrubby plant with knotty stems growing to a 

 height of from five to eight feet, and the roots swell out into 

 large tubers of a yellowish colour. These tubers sometimes 

 attain to a very large size, and from them is obtained the 



