CHAP. IV.] 
WEST INDIES. 
139 
GINGER. 
THIS grateful aromatic root had a very early in¬ 
troduction into Hispaniola, and I should not have 
supposed it an exotic, but that Acosta relates, it 
was conveyed from the East Indies to New Spain 
by a person named Francisco de Mendoza. 
If such was the fact, the Spanish Americans 
must have entertained very high expectations of 
profit from its culture, and carried it to a great ex¬ 
tent in a very short space of time; it appearing 
from the same author, that no less than 22,053 
cwt. were exported by them to Old Spain in the 
year 1547. 
Ginger is distinguished into two sorts, the black 
and the white; but the difference arises wholly 
from the mode of curing; the former being render¬ 
ed fit for preservation by means of boiling w T ater, 
the latter by insolation; and as it is found necessary 
to select the fairest and soundest roots for exposure 
to the sun, white ginger is commonly one third 
dearer than black in the market. 
In the cultivation of this root no greater skill or 
care is required than in the propagation of potatoes 
in Great Britain, and it is planted much in the 
same manner; but is fit for digging only once a 
