The sugar-cane: a poem in four books with notes / [James Grainger].

  • James Grainger
Date:
1766
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sugar-cane: a poem in four books with notes / [James Grainger]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    50/200 page 36
    Th 86 THE SUGAR-CANE, BooklI. gold ; Leaft of the winged vagrants of the fky, : Yet dauntlefs as the ftrong-poune’d bird of Jove; To rob them of their ne&ar’s lufcious fore. Bur if with ftones thy meagre lands are fpread ; Be thefe colle&ted, they will pay the toil: And let Vitruvius, aided by the line, : Fence thy plantations with a thick-built wall. 535 On this lay cuttings of the prickly pear; They foon a formidable fence will fhoot: and bold. ‘The crefted one, though not fo frequent, is yet more beautiful than the others. It is chiefly to be found in the woody eee of the mountains. Edwards has defcribed 2 very beautiful umming bird, with a long tail, which is a native of Surinam, but which I never faw in theie iflands. They are eafily caught in rainy weather, > Ver. 536 prickly pear;] The botanical name of this plant is ‘Opuntia; it will grow in the barreneft foils, and on the tops of walls, if a {mall portion of earth be added. There are two forts of it, one whofe fruit is roundifh and fweet, the other, which has more the fhape of a fig, is four. ‘The former is fometimes eaten, but the other feldom. The French call them * Pomme de Raquette.” Both fruit and leaves, are guarded with fharp prickles, and, even in the interior part of the fruit, there is one which muft be removed before it is eaten. ‘The leaves, ‘which are half an inch thick, having a fort of pulp interpofed between their furfaces, being deprived of their {pines, and fof- tened by the fire, make no bad poultice for inhammations. The juice of the fruit is an innocent Fucus, and is often ufed to tinge guava jellies. The opuntia, upon which the cochineal infect ‘breeds, has no fpines, and is cultivated with care in South- America, where a f{pecies of it alfo grows wild. The prickly Lt grows naturally in fome parts of Spain. Wild a ee ee
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