The term chicory is an Anglicised French word, the original being chicorée. The plant is known to botanists by the name of _Cichorium Intybus_, and belongs to the natural order Compositæ, tribe Cichoreæ. It is an indigenous plant with a perennial root, better known probably to most readers by its English appellation of wild succory. The root is spindle-shaped, with a single or double head; externally it is whitish or greenish yellow; internally, whitish, fleshy, and milky. The roots grown in this country are smaller, and more woody or fibrous than those which are imported from the Continent. The cultivation and consumption of chicory have now attained a very great importance, not only on the Continent, but also in the United Kingdom. Dating its extended use chiefly from the system pursued by the first Napoleon to substitute home-grown for colonial products, it has gradually become approved and popularised for a beverage, either used alone or more generally mixed with coffee, in numerous countries, where it can be sold far under the price of even the lowest grade coffees. The manufacture of a factitious coffee from roasted chicory-root would seem to have originated in Holland, where it has been used for more than a century. It remained a secret until 1801, when it was introduced into France by M. Orban of Liége, and M. Giraud of Homing, a short distance from Valenciennes. This root is not superior to many others which possess sweet and mucous principles, but of all the plants which have been proposed as substitutes for coffee, and which, when roasted and steeped in boiling water, yield an infusion resembling the berry, it is the only one which has maintained its ground. The French, not satisfied with chicory, have recently introduced acorn coffee and roasted beetroot. The beet, it is asserted, besides communicating its hygienic qualities, also helps to sweeten the beverage. This new coffee is called “café de betterave,” as the old was called “café chicorée.” These distinctions will soon become as puzzling as those in America, which led the Irish waiter to ask if the gentleman would have coffee-tay or tay-tay.