GRAINS OF PARADISE

grains of paradise, guinea grains, or melegueta pepper (ger. _paradieskorner_, fr. _graines de paradis_, _maniguette_), the seeds of _amomum melegueta_, a reed-like plant of the natural order _zingiberaceae_. it is a native of tropical western africa, and of prince's and st thomas's islands in the gulf of guinea, is cultivated in other tropical countries, and may with ease be grown in hothouses in temperate climates. the plant has a branched horizontal rhizome; smooth, nearly sessile, narrowly lanceolate-oblong alternate leaves; large, white, pale pink or purplish flowers; and an ovate-oblong fruit, ensheathed in bracts, which is of a scarlet colour when fresh, and reaches under cultivation a length of 5 in. the seeds are contained in the acid pulp of the fruit, are commonly wedge-shaped and bluntly angular, are about 1-1/4 lines in diameter and have a glossy dark-brown husk, with a conical light-coloured membranous caruncle at the base and a white kernel. they contain, according to fluckiger and hanbury, 0.3% of a faintly yellowish neutral essential oil, having an aromatic, not acrid taste, and a specific gravity at 15.5 deg. c of 0.825, and giving on analysis the formula c20h32o, or c10h16 + c10h16o; also 5.83% of an intensely pungent, viscid, brown resin. grains of paradise were formerly officinal in british pharmacopoeias, and in the 13th and succeeding centuries were used as a drug and a spice, the wine known as hippocras being flavoured with them and with ginger and cinnamon. in 1629 they were employed among the ingredients of the twenty-four herring pies which were the ancient fee-favour of the city of norwich, ordained to be carried to court by the lord of the manor of carleton (johnston and church, _chem. of common life_, p. 355, 1879). grains of paradise were anciently brought overland from west africa to the mediterranean ports of the barbary states, to be shipped for italy. they are now exported almost exclusively from the gold coast. grains of paradise are to some extent used illegally to give a fictitious strength to malt liquors, gin and cordials. by 56 geo. iii. c. 58, no brewer or dealer in beer shall have in his possession or use grains of paradise, under a penalty of l200 for each offence; and no druggist shall sell the same to a brewer under a penalty of l500. they are, however, devoid of any injurious physiological action, and are much esteemed as a spice by the natives of guinea. see bentley and trimen, _medicinal plants_, tab. 268; lanessan, _hist. des drogues_, pp. 456-460 (1878). grain trade. the complexity of the conditions of life in the 20th century may be well illustrated from the grain trade of the world. the ordinary bread sold in great britain represents, for example, produce of nearly every country in the world outside the tropics. general considerations. wheat has been cultivated from remote antiquity. in a wild state it is practically unknown. it is alleged to have been found growing wild between the euphrates and the tigris; but the discovery has never been authenticated, and, unless the plant be sedulously cared for, the species dies out in a surprisingly short space of time. modern experiments in cross-fertilization in lancashire by the garton brothers have evolved the most extraordinary "sports," showing, it is claimed, that the plant has probably passed through stages of which until the present day there had been no conception. the tales that grains of wheat found in the cerements of egyptian mummies have been planted and come to maturity are no longer credited, for the vital principle in the wheat berry is extremely evanescent; indeed, it is doubtful whether wheat twenty years old is capable of reproduction. the garton artificial fertilization experiments have shown endless deviations from the ordinary type, ranging from minute seeds with a closely adhering husk to big berries almost as large as sloes and about as worthless. it is conjectured that the wheat plant, as now known, is a degenerate form of something much finer which flourished thousands of years ago, and that possibly it may be restored to its pristine excellence, yielding an increase twice or thrice as large as it now does, thus postponing to a distant period the famine doom prophesied by sir w. crookes in his presidential address to the british association in 1898. wheat well repays careful attention; contrast the produce of a carelessly tilled russian or indian field and the bountiful yield on a good lincolnshire farm, the former with its average yield of 8 bushels, the latter with its 50 bushels per acre; or compare the quality, as regards the quantity and flavour of the flour from a fine sample of british wheat, such as is on sale at almost every agricultural show in great britain, with the produce of an egyptian or syrian field; the difference is so great as to cause one to doubt whether the berries are of the same species. it may be stated roundly that an average quartern loaf in great britain is made from wheat grown in the following countries in the proportions named:-- +------+-----+-------+------+-------+-------+---------+------+----------+ |u.s.a.| u.k.|russia.|argen-|british|canada.|rumania- |austr-| other | | | | | tina.|india. | |bulgaria.| alia.|countries.| +------+-----+-------+------+-------+-------+---------+------+----------+ | oz. | oz. | oz. | oz. | oz. | oz. | oz. | oz. | oz. | | 26 | 13 9 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | | or expressed in percentages as follows:-- | | 40 | 20 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | +------+-----+-------+------+-------+-------+---------+------+----------+ for details connected with grain and its handling see agriculture, corn