arrowroot," or as being "warranted free from adulteration;" and
one, which contained a considerable quantity of potato flour, was
particularly recommended to invalids, and certified as the finest
quality ever imported into this country. The profits to the vendors of
the inferior compounds are to be estimated from the fact that the
price of sago meal and potato starch is about 4d. per lb., while the
genuine Maranta arrowroot is from 1s. to 3s. 6d. per lb.

The arrowroot of Bermuda has long borne a high reputation, being
manufactured on a better principle and being therefore of superior
quality to that produced in Antigua, St. Vincent, and other West
Indian islands. The process is tedious and requires a good deal of
labor. There is no doubt, however, that the quality of the water has a
great deal of influence on the fecula. Bermuda arrowroot is
necessarily made from rain water collected in tanks or reservoirs, and
the lime and the deposit from houses, &c., may alter its properties.
After the root is taken from the ground it is placed in a mill, and is
thereby cleansed of its exterior excrescences; it is then thoroughly
washed, when it is ready for the large machine, the principle of which
is similar to the "treadmill." A horse is placed on something like a
platform, and as he prances up and down, the machinery is set in play.
A person stands at the end, and places the root in the wheel of the
machine, which, after being ground, falls into a trough of water.
After going through this process, it is rewashed and then placed in
vessels to dry in the sun. It is packed in boxes lined with blue paper
or tin, and sent to the markets in England and America, where it
generally meets with ready sale.

At a meeting of the Agricultural Society of Bermuda, held in May,
1840, Mr. W.M. Cox submitted a new arrowroot strainer which he had
invented. It consists of two cloth strainers fixed to hoops from 15 to
20 inches in diameter. The strainers working one within the other, are
kept in motion by a lever, moved by hand. The whole apparatus is not
an expensive one, and is well adapted for aiding the manufacture of
arrowroot upon an expeditious and economical plan.

A simple method by which starch may be extracted from the fecula with
much purity consists in enclosing the flour in a muslin bag and
squeezing it with the fingers while submerged in clean water, by which
process the starch passes out in a state of white powder and subsides.
Tw