5o8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 192. 



of what are called ' coffee substitutes.' So extensive is 

 this business that it is quite safe to say that consumers 

 pay $12,000,000 for what they believe to be cheap coffee. 

 This raises the total expenditure to $77,000,000, and it repre- 

 sents a sale of 276,000,000 pounds, for the 'substitute coffee' 

 usually sells at twenty cents per pound. It will thus be 

 seen that 96,000,000 pounds of bogus coffee are sold in the 

 United States every year, and some estimates place it at 

 120,000,000 pounds. Taking the lowest figures, $25,000,000 

 are received for substances which can be profitably placed 

 on the market at six cents a pound. The manufacturers, 

 therefore, receive $6,000,000 for their goods, while retailers 

 gain a profit of $18,000,000. There are two kinds of bogus 

 coffee, an imitation bean and the ground article. The 

 bean is the most difficult to produce, and it is only recently 

 that actual success in this direction has been attained. The 

 bogus bean must not only look like the genuine berry 

 when raw, but it should be capable of taking a proper 

 color when roasted. A very good specimen is now manu- 

 factured in Philadelphia and Trenton, being composed of 

 rye-flour, glucose and water. The soft paste is then moulded 

 and carefully dried. To the eye of an expert the presence of 

 this imitation is easy of detection, and it cannot be used to 

 any great extent among wholesalers. But when coffee goes 

 to the retailer adulteration begins. Sometimes the retailer is 

 deceived, but nine times out of ten he is the one who intro- 

 duces adulteration. The ground article is very easily pro- 

 duced in the proper color, and an aroma is infused by using 

 strong decotions of coffee-essence. 



" When mixed with real coffee even the expert eye and 

 tongue may be deceived, while to the ordinary consumer it 

 seems to be the genuine product. Bogus coffee-beans have 

 only a slight resemblance to the natural berry, for though they 

 possess proper form the cicatrice on the inner face is too 

 smooth. Then, again, the gray color of the raw bean is not 

 quite up to the mark, but when these manufactured beans are 

 roasted with five per cent, of genuine coffee they find a ready 

 sale. These bogus beans can be made at a cost of $30 per 

 1,000 pounds, and when mixed with fifty pounds of pure 

 coffee the whole 1,050 pounds cost $37.50, or 33^ cents per 

 pound, so that a profit of nearly 100 per cent, is the result. 

 There are any number of ' coffee substitutes,' the Hillis va- 

 riety being the most successful. This company is already 

 manufacturing 10,000 pounds per week, it being sold by the 

 barrel to retailers in nearly all of the New England, middle 

 and western states. The profits of this concern are supposed 

 to be $300 per day, and its operations have reached such a 

 scale that the stockholders were recently offered nearly 

 $1,000,000 for their secret and business, but it was declined. 

 No one accustomed to coffee-drinking would imagine that a 

 decoction of this stuff was like either Mocha or Rio, but when 

 mixed with four times its bulk of genuine coffee only an ex- 

 pert could detect the imposition. The manufacturers of these 

 ' coffee substitutes ' claim that they are not violating the law 

 of adulteration of food-products, because they do not sell their 

 goods as coffee, but simply as a substitute. While this may 

 be true, it does not apply to the retailer, who mixes the bogus 

 stuff with good coffee, and sells the whole as the genuine arti- 

 cle. Though manufactories may be beyond the penalties of the 

 adulteration law, they should be suppressed, for without them 

 coffee adulteration by retailers would be impossible. When 

 it is remembered that American people are compelled to pay 

 $25,000,000 for ingredients that can be manufactured for one- 

 fifth the sum received by coffee-growers, the necessity for the 

 suppression of this nefarious trade is apparent. Oleomarga- 

 rine cannot be sold as butter, neither should ' coffee substitutes ' 

 be made to masquerade under the name of Java, Mocha or Rio." 



The production of artificial coffee has also received some 

 attention in Germany, where an imperial decree has been 

 issued forbidding the manufacture and sale of the machines 

 for producing the artificial beans, which certain German news- 

 papers have recently advertised. These artificial German 

 beans are not intended in themselves as a beverage, but are 

 to be used in trade for mixing with the genuine article. 



Notes on the Distribution of Some Kansas Trees. — 

 III. The Oaks. 



KANSAS is credited with ten species of Oak, five of which 

 are confined to the extreme eastern portion of the state. 

 Only those having a more extended range will be mentioned 

 in this paper. The most widely distributed, as well as the most 

 valuable Oak of the state, is the Bur Oak (Quercus macro- 

 carpa). This is found throughout the eastern counties and 



extends to the north-west as far as Bow Creek, a branch of 

 the Solomon River, in Rooks and Phillips counties. From 

 here the line of its western limit may be traced in a south- 

 easterly direction to the Arkansas Valley, and along that 

 stream out of the state in Sumner County. A noticeable fea- 

 ture in the distribution of this Oak is, that it is found in great- 

 est abundance, and, at its best, developed on small tributaries 

 instead of the main streams, and often the best growth will be 

 well toward the head of a branch where the bends are small 

 and the bottoms narrow. The rich deep soil of these bits of 

 bottom-land seems better suited to its growth than the more 

 sandy rich bottoms of the rivers. 



Along the Solomon River five groves of this tree may be 

 seen at the junctions of the most of its tributaries, and further 

 up the valley, where there is little or no Oak-timber to be seen 

 on the river a few miles back in the hills, on some small creek 

 we may find scattering gnarled old trees, with short trunks and 

 rugged, angular limbs, while among them will be thrifty 

 young trees, just the size for good fence-posts, either single 

 cuts or quartered. These young trees the traveler of twenty 

 years ago will remember as only straggling bushes, springing 

 up perennially as the fires burned them down. Others still 

 younger are pushing out on the borders, the product of acorns 

 dropped since the buffalo ceased to cut his sharp paths down 

 the hills to water. Further east the older trees are found to be 

 of better length of trunk and straighter grain, though, like the 

 Cottonwood, the best of them have been hauled to the steam 

 saw-mills years ago. 



Occasionally one finds a block of the original growth which 

 has escaped the axe ; such a one may be seen on the head 

 of Cedar Creek, a small tributary of the Blue from the east, a 

 few miles from Manhattan. Here in an area of not more than 

 an acre, thickly grown with a variety of hard-wood timber, I 

 measured twenty Bur Oaks which averaged ten feet in girth 

 at two feet from the ground and twenty feet to the first limb. 

 The largest of these was fifteen and a half feet around. At 

 present the home market for such timber is much better than 

 it is for Black Walnut, Oak being in great demand for bridge- 

 planking. 



Next in an extent of area as well as in size comes the Chest- 

 nut or Chinquapin Oak (Q. prinoides). This finds its western 

 limit in the lower valley of the Republican River, in Clay 

 County, and on the Smoky for a short distance above its junc- 

 tion with the Republican. This Oak is more commonly found 

 on high ground, often covering the steep faces of the bluffs 

 fronting the streams, where it becomes dwarfed in habit, some- 

 times only a mere bush, sprouting from a spreading gnarly 

 crown as often as swept over by the fires. Close to the small 

 streams and in the bottoms, where the soil is rich, it occasion- 

 ally becomes a stately tree. On the banks of the Blue River 

 opposite Manhattan a group of these trees has been jealously 

 guarded by their owner, who was one of the earliest settlers. 

 Five of them which I measured averaged slightly less than ten 

 feet in circumference at two feet above the ground, the largest 

 being twelve feet and eight inches in girth. The wood of this 

 Oak is tough and heavy, and, though cracking badly as it sea- 

 sons, it is highly valued for posts and fuel. Occupying as it 

 does the stony land and the narrower draws and ravines, there 

 is not the inducement to clear the land for farming purposes, 

 which causes the slaughter of so much valuable hard- wood 

 timber. As there seems to be no basis upon which to separate 

 the form called Q. Muhlenbergii by Dr. Engelmann from the 

 smaller and more shrubby growth of the hill-sides, I have pre- 

 ferred to consider them all under the name given above. 



Less widely distributed, but more abundant in its region, is 

 the Black Jack (Q. nigra). In the eastern part of the state this 

 is abundant, constituting the greater part of the scrubby 

 growth which covers many miles of broken upland. As a mere 

 bush it often crowns some rocky bluff or dots its steep sides ; 

 again, it is a dwarfed tree, growing in almost impenetrable 

 thickets ; in the more fertile soil bordering the bottoms it be- 

 comes a rugged, knotty tree of sometimes two feet or more in 

 diameter and fifty feet high. Whatever the size, it varies but 

 little in character. Its bright red young leaves make a beauti- 

 ful picture when they are opening. These, as they develop, 

 become thick and leathery, shining dark green above and rus- 

 sety downy beneath, presenting a handsome appearance 

 throughout the season. While maintaining their general 

 wedge-like form, these leaves are exceedingly variable in the 

 number and depth of their lobes, and trees of the extreme 

 forms might readily be mistaken for distinct species if judged 

 by this characteristic only. These leaves, tan-colored and dead, 

 rustle on the twigs till the buds begin to swell in the spring. 

 The bark of the trunks is black, finely checked and rough, 

 shading off to the smooth iron-gray of the limbs, which are 



