Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-09

trees, which seem to spread their limbs over the whole of creation. It is one of the most prominent and picturesque fea- lures of the landscape.
 Its seeds are as light as thistle down and float on the wind for hundreds of miles. When it's great pods burst the whole country is whitened. It isn't easy to describe this wonderful tree. It does not contain as many cubic feet of timber as the great California trees, but 1t is among the largest of living things. It's individuality is most impressive, and one cant help but feel its grandeur It is seen to the best advantage in the high valleys, where it towers above the other trees, spreading it's enormous branches in a patroniZing way over the surround ing forest. The trunk of a well-grown tree is about F feet in diameter. From this enormous trunk great buttresses arise in the angles between the trunk and the rootS At the trunk they are much taller than man and or feet thick. They taper toward the ground, extending out in every direction like so many wings, for about 200 feet before they take hold in the deeper soil. The Span ish conquerors stabled their horses be- tween the buttresses. By properly cov- ering them quite a comfortable home can be made with a dozen or more rooms.
 The enormous limbs spread out at right angles to the trunk to an incredible dis tance, in some instances covering cir- cle sixty yards in diameter or covering half an acre.
 On high hill just east of Montego, at the entrance of Montego bay, there stands one of these giant trees. It com mands a view of the sea for miles away and the pilots, with an eye to business, have built ladder to it's top, and there they sit, night and day, keeping a sharp lookout for approaching vessels. Each pilot is in business for himself and the fe fOrlat tn6 the pilots come down from their perch, fly down the hill, jump into their long, narrow canoes, manned by four brawny blacks, and away they pull for dear life far out to sea, sometimes going live or six miles out in their eagerness to be the first to board the vessel. Sometimes one pilot will sight sail and make start; the others, seeing nothing follow in haste and paddle furiously in the wake of the leader until the vessel heaves in sight.
 Up in the mountains there is grown one of the best grades of coffee in the world, and it commands the highest prices III England The best coffee is the rat coffee, or the seeds from berries that have been gnawed by rats. Unfoftu- nately for the prosperity of the island, the production of coffee is not as great as It should be. The most valuable products of Jamaica are it's sugar and rum description of making them may interest you. Only one crop of cane is cut here each year, but in St. Kitt's two are gath cred The cane is ground in mill, the juice flowing into pans beneath IL IS then pumped into tuns. The saccharine gravity is tested by the saccharometer. and the quantity of refined lime required for clarification determined. The lime is then put in, producing an effect like yeast, causing the impurities and refuse matter to rise to the top. After the notification has been accomplished the iiuuid is conducted into vats, where 1t is boiled and then run into shallow coolers, on which it solidifies. It is then shoVeled into the hopper of a mill where, by the centrifugal process the constituents are disintegrated, the dry sugar falling into one receptacle, while the liquid molasses drips into another.
 The molasses is sent to the adjoining distillery and made into rum by the ordi- nary process of distillation, the condensa- tion of vaporized spirit. The rum IS colorless when distilled, and is tinged to the commercial tint by the use of burnt sugar.
 The value of the rum from sugar estate is as great as that of the sugar itself. The excise duty is $2 gallon, and the producer receives about 75 cents. When this is added to the import duty or $2 per gallon in the United States, the cost of handling and transportation, Witn the profits of the exporter, importer and broker. it will be seen that genuine Jamaica rum is an expensive luxury by the time 1t reaches Birmingham. TO me 1t is dear at any price, for of all the Viie things I have ever tasted rum Is the worst. Negroes here will drink rum eat onions and smell bad. Each one IS pau enough alone, but mixed they are simply