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170 
FIRST BOOK. 
CASSAVA.— II. 
1. I will tell you how the meal is prepared. 
You know that every part of a plant is made up 
of tiny bags, or cells. In the cassava root these 
cells are full of juice and starch, and as we wish 
to keep the starch and get rid of the juice the 
cells must be burst. This is done by grating the 
tubers. 
2. In this way the cassava is ground into a 
pulp, which is then pressed to squeeze out the 
juice. What is left behind is cassava-meal^ and 
it is plain that it is made up of starch and the 
broken cells. 
3. The meal has to be well dried by heat, in 
large flat pans, to get rid of any juice that was 
not pressed out. Sometimes the moist meal is 
made into round cakes, which are dried on hot 
plates or tins over the fire. 
4. Now let us see what may be done with the 
juice that was squeezed out. If we allow it to 
stand for a time we shall find that it carried off* 
some of the starch, for this settles to the bottom. 
We have then to pour away the juice, and we 
get fine cassava starch, of which a very good food, 
called tapioca, can be made. 
5. I will tell you how. To make tapioca we heat 
the cassava starch on hot plates. The heat makes 
