Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1885 — Allspice and Cloves. [ARTICLE]

Allspice and Cloves.

The home of the allspice tree is South America and the West Indies, especially Jamaica. The tree is a beautiful evergreen. The flowers are small, and do not make much display. In Jamaica the tree grows without any care; but the fruit is worth so much that the planters give more attention to this crop than to any other. The berries must be picked before they are ripe, or they lose their pleasant flavor. One hundred and fifty pounds of the fruit are sometimes gathered from one tree. The crops are uncertain. It is only once in five years that it is abundant.

Tbe clove tree is a native of the Molucca Islands. It is said to be the most beautiful, elegant and precious of all trees. It is conical in form, and lives from one hundred to two hundred years. The spice is not the fruit, as is generally believed, but it is the blossoms, that are gathered before they unfold. About a dozen of these blossoms form a cluster at the end of each branch and twig of a tree. Cloves are gathered in December, and dried quickly in the shade. In the year 1521 the Molucca Islands were inhabited by a great number of people who were industrious, enterprising and happy. They devoted most of their time to the cultivation of the clover tree. Cloves were carried to all parts of the civilized world from these islands. At this time the Spaniards and Portuguese came and took the first ship load of cloves to Europe. About one hundred years later the Dutch drove away the Spaniards and Portuguese. They also sent ships to these beautiful islands and destroyed every clove tree. Any of the natives who dared to set out a clove tree was put to death. The natives all died or were carried away as slaves. Then, to raise the price of cloves, the Dutch burned a part of the crop every year. These annual burnings continued until as late as 1824. —Anon.

Some time ago the discovery was made by M. Ch. Montigny. by means of a beautiful instrument called the scintillometer, that blue largely predominates in the twinkling of the stars when there is much water in the atmosphere, and that the preponderance of green or violet is indicative of great dryness. A late series of tables by the Brussels savant indicates that he has hit upon a law by which a wet or dry season may be predicted with great certainty.