81 



Edible Products* 



The very highest quality of ginger is produced on deep, rich, black scrub or 

 virgin forest soil. It can be grown year after year on the same ground, and when 

 the soil becomes too poor to grow ''white ginger" an inferior variety— the blue- 

 will yield good crops. 



More depends on the curing of the ginger than on the soil, and regularly 

 shaped " hands," as the roots are called, command the highest price in the market. 



Planted in October, it is ready for digging in July or August. When the 

 stalk withers it is ready for harvesting. In digging out the roots they must be care 

 fully turned out with a fork without bruising or breaking the hands. These hands 

 are divested of fibrous roots and of all adhering soil, and this must be done as soon as 

 they are dug, for, if allowed to dry with soil, &c, adhering to them, the ginger will 

 never be white. After cleaning, the roots are thrown at once into water,, and are 

 ready for peeling. 



The peeling is an art easily learned. As the oil cells on which the aroma of 

 ginger depends are close to the surface of the root, the peel must be very thinly 

 taken off with a narrow-bladed knife. As fast as the roots are peeled they are 

 thrown into water and washed. A very little water will serve to wash a great deal 

 of ginger. The roots remain in the water all night. Lime-juice in the water will give 

 a whiter root. By using boiling water the peel comes off easily, and what is known 

 as black ginger commercially is produced. 



After washing, the roots are dried in the sun on mats or boards laid on the 

 ground. They are exposed at sunrise and turned over at midday. At sunset they 

 are taken in or carefully covered, as rain or dew causes mildew. It takes about six 

 or eight days to thoroughly dry them. When dry they are graded or sorted. The 

 highest grades are large-sized hands of light, uniform colour, free from evidence of 

 mildew. This grade is very brittle and cracks easily, but they must not be broken, 

 or the value is depreciated. There are generally four or five grades, that which is 

 shrivelled and small being in the lowest. The dark varieties form another ; the 

 heavy, tough, and flinty, a third. These four are finally assorted by placing hands 

 which are small but of good texture and colour as one grade ; the larger-sized, well- 

 bleached hands are placed in the highest grades. The finest hands will range in 

 weight from 4 to 8 oz. Ginger is always packed in barrels for shipment. 



As to yield and profit of the ginger crop, these depend, like all other soil pro- 

 ducts, on soil, rainfall, sunshine, planting, care, and curing. An average yield can be 

 estimated at from 1,000 to 1,500 lb. dried ginger per acre ; 2,000 lb. have often been 

 obtained. 



Prices for ginger vary. As much as £10 per ewt. is often paid in the London 

 market for the very highest class of white ginger, but the usual market price to-day 

 averages all round from £2 2s. to £3 10s. per cwt. for Jamaica ginger, the same for 

 Cochin, and 18s. to 18s (3d. per cwt. for Japanese. 



Now in all this there does not exist a single reason why ginger should not be 

 grown by any farmer who has suitable soil in a suitable locality, and especially by 

 those who, like the Hatton Vale farmer, are blessed with a family of fourteen boys 

 and girls. Think what a lot of ginger they could prepare of an evening sitting round 

 the fire on an August night, in the same way as forty-five years ago the farmers' 

 wives and children and the farm hands ^^sed to prepare arrowroot, grating the roots 

 into tubs and buckets on graters made of kerosene tins. Arrowroot was worth form 

 Is. 6d. to 2s. per lb., and it paid to prepare it by hand. How much better would it pay 

 toprepare ginger, so easily grown, so prolific, so easily cured, due care being exercised, 

 and for which, in the United States alone, there is an annual demand for over 

 3,000,000 lb., leaving Great Britain and other European countries out of calculation.— 

 Queensland Agricultural Journal, April, 1906, 



II 



