ile the fibres are tender and full of sap.

The ginger grown in the West Indies is considered superior in quality
to that of the East, doubtless because more care is paid to the
culture and drying of the root, but it is of less importance to
commerce. The quantities imported from these two quarters is however
becoming more equal, and Africa is coming into the field as a
producer, 1,545 casks and packages having arrived from the western
coast in 1846. The annual average export of ginger from Barbados
between the years 1740 and 1788, was 4,667 bags; between 1784 and
1786, 6,320 bags; in 1788, 5,562 cwt. were shipped; in 1792, 3,046
bags and barrels. In 1738, so widely was the culture of this root
diffused in Jamaica, that 20,933 bags, of one cwt. each, and 8,864
lbs. in casks were shipped. The exports may now be taken on an average
at 4,000 cwt.; but, like all the other staple products of the island,
this has fallen off one-half since the emancipation of the negro
population.

In the three years which preceded the abolition of slavery, 5,719,000
lbs. of ginger were shipped from Jamaica. In the three years ending
with 1848, the quantity shipped had decreased 2,612,186 lbs., as will
be seen by the following returns:--

GINGER SHIPPED.
lbs. lbs.
1830 1,748,800 | 1846 1,462,000
1831 1,614,640 | 1847 1,324,480
1832 2,355,560 | 1848 320,340
--------- | ---------
5,719,000 | 3,106,820

In 1843 there were shipped from Jamaica 3,719 casks and bags; in 1844,
3,692 casks and 1730 bags; in 1845, 3,506 casks, valued at L4 10s.
each, and 1,129 bags, valued at L2 each, equal in all to L18,037.
From the island of Hayti 8,769 lbs. of ginger were exported in 1835,
and 15,509 lbs. in 1836. 39 packages of ginger were shipped from
Barbados in 1851.

In Maranham and one or two other provinces of Brazil, ginger of an
excellent quality is grown, and a good deal is exported. It was very
early an article of culture in South America. According to Acosta, it
was brought to America by one Francisco de Mendoza, from Malabar, and
so rapidly did its cultivation spread, that as far back as 1547,
22,053 cwt. were shipped to Europe. Southey, in his "History of
Brazil" (vol. i., p. 320), says, "Ginger had been brought from the
island of St. Thoma