THE LICORICE PLANT. 9 



he thought the cultivation of the plant had decreased in the neighbor- 

 hood by 100 acres since the large importation from Smyrna and Spain 

 chity free. 



Though some little jealousy may exist as to explaining the growth, 

 &c., of the plant, I was assured by Mr. Longstaff that the process de- 

 scribed to me, and partly witnessed, was a simple one, the great secret 

 of the trade being the way in which the Spanish juice is boiled and then 

 compounded for being made into cakes, &c. 



MANUFACTURE OF LICORICE IN ENGLAND. 



Gathering from the general request of the Department for informa- 

 tion as to the uses of the plant that some description of the method of 

 manufacture of the crude product into the sweetmeat may not be un- 

 welcome. I will state what I learned from the largest manufacturer 

 there, Mr. Hillaby. This gentleman received me very kindly, and, after 

 some general information as to the growth of the plant in Pontefract, 

 stated that the manufacturers depended for their supplies entirely on 

 Spanish and Smyrna juice, samples of which, Nos. 6 and 7, I inclose. 

 This extract inspissated from the plant either in its wild or cultivated 

 state comes to them in large packing cases of 2 cwt. each, the cases 

 securely dovetailed and lined with paper to avoid leakage in case of 

 heat the juice being really a solid plastic mass of a dark brown color, 

 feeling like tar and inclined to run if subject to great summer heat. It 

 may, indeed, be run into these cases (vide quoted account). This juice, 

 as I gathered from Mr. Hillaby, could not be obtained from the Pontefract 

 roots, partly owing to their small size, and partly because it paid growers 

 better to sell to chemists, &c., who found a ready market for the roots 

 as they were. 



I judge, therefore, that our hot summers would produce equally large 

 roots with those crushed in Spain, so that this product, if now largely 

 imported into the United States, could be obtained in paying quantities 

 from the home growth. 



Understanding this juice to be unadulterated, I presume there is no 

 secret in the crushing of the roots to furnish it, though I found no one 

 who seemed ready to explain the sort of machine formerly used, and 

 all that I can hence oifer 011 this point is found in the quoted accounts 

 previously given. 



Explaining very courteously to me that the mixing and boiling pro- 

 cess was a secret, Mr. Hillaby was good enough, however, to show me 

 through his extensive premises iu order that I might see the process of 

 manufacture after the juice was properly boiled and mixed for being 

 made into cakes. In the first room I found large masses of the "juice," 

 now perhaps more properly called embryo Pontefract cakes, spread on 

 heavy tables, and there rolled by women as dough is worked. This 

 mass was then rolled out by a machine into thin sheets, laid on trays, 

 and removed into a room at a temperature of about 100 and there left 

 until the following morning, when it was cut out, stamped by machinery 

 into various forms, including the well known " Pomfret cake" (sample 

 Ko. 8), which holds its own, with many other novelties of design, such 

 as letters of the alphabet, fluted sticks, &c. 



The sweetmeat, as it has now become, is again subject to a high tem- 

 perature to " skin over," and is then packed in card-board boxes, which 

 are placed in wooden cases and sent off to all parts of the British Isles 

 and the colonies. 



