The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom

by P. L. Simmonds

Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

P. L. Simmonds, a writer on trade and colonial produce, published The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom in 1854, in the wake of the Great Exhibition, as a practical handbook for colonists, manufacturers and merchants. He surveys the plants grown or gathered in tropical and subtropical regions that entered world commerce: the leaves and seeds used for beverages such as tea and coffee, the grain crops and roots that make the bread stuffs of commerce, spices and fragrant woods, dyes and tanning materials, oil-yielding plants, and drugs and medicinal plants. For each he gives details of cultivation, preparation for shipment and market value. It offers a detailed picture of the economic botany behind the Victorian empire. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.