The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-07-21

green, and then to bright red, when they
are ready for the harvest. If ungath-
! cred, they develop into punches of gor-
geous flowers, which are succeeded by a
dark purple berry. The brown half-inch
long spikes that come into market-the
calyX of the floWer-buds, terminating in
-four spreading sepals and four unopened
petals which form a small ball in the
center-are powerfully fragrant, with a
taste too hot to be pleasant. When
pressed they exude volatile oil, to the
unusual proportion of eighteen per cent
The essential oil, of which such vast
quantities are used all over the world, is
a mixture of two oils, one a hydro-car-
bon is omeric with oil of turpentine; the
other an oxygenated oil-eugenic acid.
There is practically no limit to it's use,
as a condiment in culinary operations,
in confectionery, in the preparation of
liquors and in materia medica.
Still more general, if possible, is the
use of cinnamon, the inner bark of an
other evergreen which belongs by ma
ture in the far east. Most of the world S
supply now comes from Ceylon, Java
and southern India, though the French
have done considerable with it in re-
cent years in their South American ter
ritory. The tree is smaller than either
the Glove or nutmeg, rarely attaining a
height of twenty feet, with large, OBJ
long leaves and flowers of a dull-green
tint which emits a disagreeable odor.
| The cultivation of cinnamon is peculiar
the plants being managed on the cop
pice 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 year, and the bark de-
| tached in lengths of about foot At
| ter lying in bundles for few days, each
separate piece is scraped, by hand, to
remove the inner and outer layers, re-
ducing portions to the thinness of cob
! web. The pieces are then made UP into
composite quilts by placing the smaller
| into firm rods, three or four feet long,
ana after drying in the sun are ready
FOR expectation. Its peculiar sweet,
warm flavor is due to the aromatic oil
contained in the bark in very large pro-
portion. The coarser pieces are utilized
for the extraction Of essential oil--in
Ceylon by roughly powdering the bark
and mace atng 1t few days in sea-
water, when the whole is quickly dis
titled. A child can do that part of it,
and the Trinidad experimentor has al
ready produced from his little patch of
cinnamon bushes some golden-yellow oil
which nobody could distinguish from
the best product of Ceylon. 1t is i'm
possible to calculate how many thou
sands of pounds of cinnamon are used
every year, not only as condment and
tlavoring in cooking, but in the prepa-
ration of chocolate, confectionery and
liquors, in cordials and medicines. We
have excellent Scriptural authority for
its use, since in Exodus the Lord COM
manded Moses to employ both "kinna
mon" and cassia. From remotest anti
putty the aromatic bark was known,
and so highly thought of by the an
clients that tiny bit was considered a
fit gift for a king Scion and Plato fire.
quently mentioned it; so do Herodotas
and other classical writ rs. The Arab
traders who first dealt in precious
spices, surrounded the history and pro-
duction of cinnamon with special tales
of mystery, the last fading remnant of
which will speedily vanish when the
business falls into pr sale Yankee hands, |
Pepper, the commonest of the four
seasons" includes a dozen pungent |
spices-black, white, red, long, Jamai-
ca, Ashantee. etc--derived from several |
entirely different orders of plants. The |
black pepper. constantly used in every |
household, is the fruit of perennial |
shrub, which is INDIGENOUS to the West |
Indies as well as the Malay Peninsula |
and the islands of the Indian ocean. 1t |
was the first spice known to man for |
ages formed staple article of COM /,
merce between Europe and the Orient /
Tribute has been levied in pepper, as in |
the year 40S, when Alarc demanded |
three thousand pounds eff it as part of
the ransom of Rome. All through the
middle ages peppercorn rents prevailed, |
the renter being compelled to pay a
pound of pepper at stated intervals.
The eXorbltant pr.ce of it, when brought |
by the Arabs across the deserts led the
Portuguese to seek sea route to India,
in the course of which they discovered
the passage around the Cape Of Good
Hope and thereafter, for two hundred
years, the pepper-trade remained almost
a HIDlOpDly VI Tie Se ttpNI, LII
England pepper used to be very heavily
taxed, as late as 1923 the import
to two shillings sixpence the
pound, Venice, Genoa and other cities
of southern Europe owed their early
wealth to traffic in pepper; would it not
be curious if the same thing should hap
pen to some of these out-of-the- way
towns of our new possessions? History
repeats herself. Nowadays
the largest quantities Of pepper are pro-
duced in Penang the Island of Rho
and Jahare near Singapore. Jamaica
pepper" so-called which is indigenous
also to California, Florida and other
parts of our own south, is not pepper at
all, but the fruit of an evergreen tree of
the Myrtle family In the West Indies
it is known as ''pimento," and with us
as "allspice," being supposed to com
bine the favors of all spices. Consider
ing the amount of allspce used for
tunes 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,
out may be revived now that money is ,
becoming more plentiful Thirty years !
,go there We're hundreds of prosperous !
'cafetals' on the mountain slopes near 8
where the coffee bush -four ,
shes its best at an average altitude of =;