tecs, who used it in their chocolate. Little care is required in its cultivation, it only being necessary to suppress hardier creepers around it. The pods which constitute the vanilla of commerce are first dried in the sun, then sweated in woollen cloths, and again dried.[1] Humboldt estimated the annual average export of the article through Vera Cruz at $60,000, since which time its production has increased fivefold.[2]
From another parasitical plant is procured the drug jalap, which derives its name from the city of Jalapa. The medicinal properties are contained in the root, the virtues of which the Spaniards obtained a knowledge of from the Aztecs. Cultivation of the plant was not commenced before 1865, when exhaustion of the wild species growing in the forests of Jalapa, Orizaba, and Córdoba doubtless necessitated its culture.[3]
Among the numerous contributions of the Mexican forests to the pharmacopolist,[4] mention can only be made of the sarsaparilla, ipecacuanha, rhubarb, gentian, sassafras, valerian, and verbena. But these forests, which yield in such lavish abundance timber, dye-woods, and other useful produce,[5] in some parts
- ↑ Much care must be taken in the process, as a single blemished pod will ruin a whole box in its transportation from America to Europe. Humboldt, Essai Polit., 438-41.
- ↑ In the two fiscal years of 1873-4 and 1877-9, the exportations amounted respectively to $284,710 and $346,133. The amount produced in 1879 was 55,118 kilograms, worth $651,938. Busto, ut sup., i., Cuad. Agric., no. 30, 4a pte, 97. When exportations of Mexican produce are spoken of, the reader should bear in mind that the figures quoted do not represent the true amounts, owing to contraband trade.
- ↑ At the beginning of the century, the annual exports amounted to about $60,000, while now they do not exceed $7,000. Id., i. 4a pte, 96; Humboldt, ut sup., 967. M. R. Gallo was the first to engage in cultivating the plant. Soc. Mex. Geog., 2a Ep., i. 7; Mex., Mem. Fom., 1866, 69.
- ↑ Busto supplies a list of 113 medicinal trees and plants. Id., i. la pte, 3.
- ↑ Among which I may mention the India-rubber or hule tree, and the vegetable wax-plant, both of which have suffered extensive destruction by unnecessary mutilation in the extraction of their produce. There still exist vast wooded districts in Chiapas, where the former grows in abundance, and the world is now looking to that portion of Mexico for a supply of rubber which is getting scarce in its old quarters. Consult Poumian, Notic., in Soc. Mex. Geog., 2a Ep., iv. 502-3; and for particulars about the vegetable wax-plant called by the Mexican Indians copaltzihuitl and by the Spaniards limoncillo, see Id., 2a Ep., i. 889-91, and ii. 115-16; Mex., Col. Mem. Instruct., no. 4.
