N 
; 
79 
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i 
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for feveral days, till tliey are fufficiently dried; tliis operation is to be 
conduded with great care, obferving that on the firft and fecond day's 
expofure they require to be turned very often, and always to be pre- 
ferved from rain and the evening dews. After this procefs is com- 
pleted, which is known by the colour and rattling of the feeds in the 
b 
they are put up in bags or hogfheads for the market 
This 
fpice, which was at firll brought over for dietetic ufes, has been long 
employed in the fliops as a fuccedaneum to the more coftly oriental 
aromatics; " it is moderately warm, of an agreeable flavour, fomewhat 
refembling that of a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs. Diftilled 
with water it yields an elegant eflential oil, fo ponderous as to fmk ia 
the water, in tafte moderately pungent, in fmell and flavour approach- 
g to oil of cloves, or rather a mixture of cloves and nutme2;s. 
redtiiied fp 
its virtue : m difl:ill 
imparts, by maceration 
geft 
;. To 
the whole of 
gives over very little to this menfl;ru 
nearly all its adive matter remaining concentrated in the iufpiilated 
extrad 
> 
it is. 
however 
Pimento can fcarcely be confidered as a medicine : 
an agreeable aromatic, and on this account is not unfrequently emplo)' 
ed with different drugs, requiring fuch a grateful adjund. Both the 
Pharmacopoeias dired an aqueous and ipirituotis diftillation to be 
made from thefe berries, and the Edinburgh College order alfo the 
Gleum eflentiale piperis Jamaicenfis. ' 
dark purple colour, and full of a fweet pulp, which 
bird 
greedily. 
muting the feeds, afterwards propagate thefe trees in all parts^ of the woods. It is 
thought that the feeds paffing through them, in this manner, undergo fome fermentation, 
which fits them better for vegetating than thofe gathered immediately from the tree | 
and I believe this is the fad." Long's Jamaica, vol. 3, p. 703^. 
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LAURUS 
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