very portion of their skins, while every unsound part is
cut away. This process must be performed with great nicety, for the
cuticle contains a resinous matter, which imparts color and a
disagreeable flavor to the fecula, which no subsequent treatment can
remove. The skinned roots are thrown into a large cistern, with a
perforated bottom, and there exposed to the action of a copious
cascade of pure water, till this runs off quite unaltered. The
cleansed roots are next put into the hopper of a mill, and are
subjected to the powerful pressure of two pairs of polished rollers of
hard brass; the lower pair of rollers being set much closer together
than the upper. The starchy matter is thus ground into a pulp, which
falls into the receiver placed beneath, and is thence transferred to
large fixed copper cylinders, tinned inside, and perforated at the
bottom with numerous minute orifices, like a kitchen drainer. Within
these cylinders, wooden paddles are made to revolve with great
velocity, by the power of a water-wheel, at the same time that a
stream of pure water is admitted from above. The paddle-arms beat out
the fecula from the fibres and parenchyma of the pulp, and discharge
it in the form of a milk through the perforated bottom of the
cylinder. This starchy water runs along pipes, and then through
strainers of fine muslin into large reservoirs, where, after the
fecula has subsided, the supernatant water is drawn off, and fresh
water being let on, the whole is agitated and left again to repose.
This process of ablution is repeated till the water no longer acquires
anything from the fecula. Finally, all the deposits of fecula of the
day's work are collected into one cistern, and being covered and
agitated with a fresh change of water, are allowed to settle till next
morning. The water being now let off, the deposit is skimmed with
palette knives of German silver, to remove any of the superficial
parts, in the slightest degree colored; and only the lower, purer, and
denser portion is prepared by drying for the market.

On the Hopewell estate, in St. Vincent, where the chief improvements
have been carried out, the drying-house is constructed like the
hot-house of an English garden. But instead of plants it contains
about four dozen of drying pans, made of copper, 71/2 feet by 41/2 feet,
and tinned inside. Each pan is supported on a carriage having iron
axles, with _lignum vitae_ wheels, like those of a railway carriage,
an