CINNAMON. The word cinnamon occurs in several passages of the English version of the Old Testament. Cinnamon was burnt on the funeral pile of Sylla and of Pop-paea. The ancients obtained their cinnamon through Arabia, to which country it was brought probably from Ceylon.

In 1498, Vasco di Gama landed at Calicut, and from that time the merchandise of India, which had formerly been imported into Europe through the medium of the Venetians, took a different route, and was carried round the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese. The Portuguese were the first Europeans who established a factory in Ceylon. This they accomplished at Columbo in the early [7:6:700]part of the sixteenth century, notwithstanding the opposition of the Arabian merchants, who carried on the trade from Ceylon, and did all in their power to prevent the establishment of the Portuguese. The Portuguese were driven from Ceylon by the Dutch in 1656, and the Dutch by the English in 1796.

The Dutch were the first who cultivated the cinnamon plant in Ceylon. They began to form plantations of cinnamon in 1765, and in 1778 Thunberg found these plantations extensive, and some of the plants or stools had already afforded bark three times. Before these plantations were formed, the Dutch had been supplied with cinnamon bark from the cinnamon plants that grew spontaneously in the territory of the king of Candy. The part of the old Dutch territory between Negumbo and Matura is that which is best fitted for the cultivation of cinnamon.

Each cinnamon plant in the cinnamon gardens in Ceylon affords, on an average, four tenths of an ounce of bark every second year. But a cinnamon plant, in its most vigorous state, and carefully cultivated, produces twenty-three ounces of bark every second year.

Besides the bark got from the cinnamon gardens, a considerable quantity is also collected from spontaneous plants. A great part of the interior of Ceylon is covered with trees and brushwood. Where the declivities are gentle, the cultivation of dry grain is practised. For this purpose, the trees and brushwood are cut down, the trunks and branches are burnt, and the ashes spread on the ground; and on the soil thus prepared dry grain is sown. The roots of the trees and bushes still remain in the ground. One crop only is taken, and in a few years the ground is again covered with trees and brushwood. At the end of fifteen or twenty years the same spot is treated as before, for the purpose of yielding a crop of grain. A piece of ground cultivated in this way is called a china. Upon those chinas which have been recently cultivated, cinnamon plants of a proper age for yielding cinnamon bark are found growing spontaneously, and the bark of these cinnamon plants is collected. But the best cinnamon bark is obtained from the plants cultivated in the cinnamon gardens.

These are restricted to a few in the neighbourhood of Columbo, government wholly monopolizing both the production and sale of the article. When the island was transferred from the East India Company to the king’s government, the former agreed to pay L.60,000 a year for 400,000 lbs. of cinnamon, to which quantity the exports were confined; and subsequently the payment was raised to the sum of L.101,000 a year. This agreement, however, was afterwards broken off, and government now either sell the article where it is grown, or export it to England, which is most commonly done. In the year 1826, the revenue derived by the Ceylon treasury from cinnamon, amounted, it is said, to L.59,23l. 4s. Id.; but it is sometimes above and sometimes below that sum. From the expenses attending its cultivation and management, there remains but little or nothing as a net surplus of profit. The odious system of monopoly which has been pursued with respect to this article has greatly limited its sale, and consequently its growth, which must weigh heavy upon the inhabitants of Ceylon. The natural cost of cinnamon, it is believed, does not exceed sixpence or eightpence per pound, and in London the following are the prices of the article, which is divided into four different sorts. The first, duty included, is worth from 8s. 2d. to 9s. 2d.; the second from 7s. 2d. to 8s. 2d.; and the third and fourth from 4s. 2d. to 6s. 6d. Were a system of free competition to prevail, not only the inhabitants of Ceylon, but also our own government, would be greatly benefited; and, besides, the article would cease to be in England a luxury only within the reach of the opulent.

The following is a table of the quantities of cinnamon retained for home consumption, the rates of duty, and the net amount of the duties in each year since 1819. In 1829 the duty was reduced, and the effect of this reduction is very remarkable :—
[table]

Cinnamon grows on the Malabar coast, and was collected there in the dominion of the king of Travancore by the Dutch and the English. Of this trade an account is given by Fra Paolo de San Bartolomeo, who resided in that country in 1776. Cinnamon is collected in Sumatra. It is also found in China, Borneo, and many of the eastern islands. Peru is also said to yield it, and Bruce informs us that it grows in the country between Cape Gardefau and Melinda. But in no part of the world does it arrive at such perfection as in Ceylon.