The times., 1899-07-23


territory. The tree is smaller than either
the Glove or nutmeg. rarely attaining a
height of twenty feet. with large ohIong
leaves and flowers of a dull green TINT,
which emit a disagreeable odor. The cul-
tivation of cinnamon Is peculiar, the plants
being managed on the coppice system. the
bark taken from shoots under two Years
growth. Only four or five shoots are
allowed to grow up from each stool, -
and these to an average length of ten
feet. The shoots are cut down twice a
year, and the bark detached in lengths of
about a foot. After lying in bundles for a
few days, each separate piece is scraped,
by hand to remove the inner and outer
layers, reducing the remaining portion to
the thinness of cobweb The pieces are
then made up into composite quills by
placing the smaller pieces inside the larger
ones. Thus the cinnamon sticks are formed
into firm rods, three or four feet long, and
after drying in the sun are ready for ex-
portation. It's peculiar sweet, warm favor
is due to the aromatic oil contained in the
| bark in very large proportion. The coarser
pieces are utilized for the extraction of
essential oil-in Ceylon by roughly pow
dering the bark and macerating it few
| days in sea-water. when the whole is
| quickly distilled A child can do that part
of 1t, and the Trinidad experimentor has
| already produced from his little patch OF
| cinnamon bushes some golden yellow oil
| which nobody could distinguish from the
] best product of Ceylon. 1t is impossible to
calculate how many thousands of pounds
of cinnamon are used every year, not only
! as condiment and fiavoring in cooking,
| but in the preparation of chocolate con-
| fectionery and liqueurs, in cordials and
medicines. We have excellent Scriptural
authority for its use, since in Exodus the
Lord commanded Moses to employ 10th
cinnamon and cassia. From remotest
| antiquity the aromatic bark was kno -;n
and so highly thought of by the ancie IS
that a tiny bit was considered fit gift for
a king. Solon and Plato frequently men
toned it; so do Hefodotus and other clas-
sical writer's. The Arab traders who first
| dealt in precious spices, surrounded the
history and production OF cinnamon with
| special tales of mystery, the last fading
remnant of which will speedily vanish
when the business falls into prosaic Yankee
! hands
Pepper. the commonest OF "the four sea-
| sons includes a dozen pungent spices
black, white, red. Jamaica, Ashantee, ETC.
: derived from several entirely different Or
| ders of plants. The black pepper, con-
| stantly used in every household, Is the fruit
of perennial shrub, which is indigenous
to the West Indies, as well as the Ma
| lay Peninsula and the islands of the
| Indian Ocean. II was the first spice
| known to man and for ages formed staple
article Of commerce between Europe and
the Orient. Tribute has been levied in
pepper; as in the year 40S, when Alaric de-
manded 5000 pounds of it as part OF the
ransom of Rome All through the Middle
| Ages, pepper-corn rents prevailed, the
renter being compelled to pay pound of
pepper at stated intervals. The exorbitant
price of it, when brought by the Arabs
| across the deserts, led the Portuguese to
| seek a sea route to India, in the course OF
which they discovered the passage around
the Cape Of Good Hope; and thereafter,
for 200 years, the pepper trade remained
almost monopoly of the Portuguese crown.
In England pepper used to be very heavily
| taxed, as late as 1923 the impost amounting
I, to Esd. the pound. Venice, Genoa, and
! other cities OF southern Europe owed
their early wealth TO traffic in pepper,
| Would it not be curious il the same thing
should happen to some of these f-the-
way towns of our new possessions? His
| tory sometimes repeats herself. Nowad2y1
| the largest quantities of pepper are w.
duced in Penang, the Island of RHO, ac1
lahore near Singapore. Jamaica pepper,
so-called, which is indigenous also to Cali
fornia, Florida, and other parts OF our own
South, Is not pepper at all, but the fruit
of an evergreen tree of the Myrtle fam
lily. In the West indies it is known as
| "pimento" and with us as 'allspice," be-
ing supposed to combine the fiayors of all
spices. Considering the amount of allspice
used, fortunes must hang in the beautiful
pink clusters of these common pimento
trees waiting for the picking.
AS to Cuban coffee; the industry has
about gone out OF date in recent years,
but may be revived now that money is
becoming more plentiful. Thirty years ago
f.
tails" on the mountain slopes near San
tiago. where the coffee bush fourishes its
best at an average altitude of 1000 feet
The old records show that 100000 pounds
| of native coffeee we're annually consumed
in Cuba and the rest OF the product (about
! 10, GOO. 600 pounds) went from Santiago and
| Guantanamo to France and Spain. 1t suit
ed the policy of the Spanish Governors to
draw blood money from every pore, and
they squeezed the life out of coffee, as
well as sugar in Cuba. When the negroes
were freed, and European beet sugar be-
| gan to compete with sugar cane, the Creole
| planters were ruined. The torch of the
! insurrection came later, and now there is
not a coffee plantation OF any account in
| Cuba, although the finest coffee in the
world grows here. The hills around Trim
idad and Santiago are particularly favora-
| BILE to coffee culture. because the dews are
heavier than in the lowlands and the
morning mists settle longer. The native
| planters always look for growth of
! lancewood olive, or redwood as never
failing sign that the ground is good for
| coffee They SOW the seed broadcast, on
| a nursery patch IN the shade, on the same
| ground intended for the crop. Then the
! field is lined out in rows four feet apart.
and the plants are set in rows at regular
! distances. The transplanting is done
when the nursery trees are a year old.
Between his coffee the Cuban planter
raises corn, beans potatoes plantains, and
| shades it from the sun with cocoa and
/ banana trees. As soon as the coffee bush is
| four feet high it Is cut off at the top to
| give more horizontal growth, and all the
sprouts are trimmed TO force the strength
into berries About 5000 plants can thus
| be grown to the acre. In the third year
| the planter begins to pick his coffee and in
| the fourth year he gets a full crop. Eight
cen hundred pounds to the acre is con-
sidered a fair yield: but of this probably
| 10 per cent will be unmarketable, unless
very carefully picked because all the cof-
| fee in a field does not ripen at once. 1t
is estimated that the crop costs, from start
| to finish, about 10 cents a pound, and If
| the planter gets the average price of 20
| cents for it, using little capital and less
| labor. he may consider himself well paid.
| Twenty acres in coffee is quite enough to
make a man independent: and the beauty
of it is that once planted, 1t Is there for
q lifetime, without the necessity of plant
! ing over again every year. At the same
| time the ground is available for garden
/ truck-at least for three or four years,
until the coffee bushes grow too large:
and after that the shading rows of cocoa
! ft-naG and try,1 .g.Il