454 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1882. 



the ground, when cutting the matured sticks? We 

 have never heard of cinnamon leaf oil as an article 

 of inland sale or external commerce, and, as we noticed 

 on Wednesday, the idea of utilizing the immature seeds 

 as cinnamon buds seems never to have occurred to auy 

 one in Ceylon. Why ? And could not a market be found 

 for the very powerful essential oil so plentiful in the 

 leaves of the cinnamon laurel? If the information which 

 Mr. Ford obtained regarding the yield per acre and 

 money returns of the (."hina cassia culture are correct, 

 we can only feel astonishment that much of the culture 

 is not abandoned, instead of bemg persevered with 

 and even extended. Mr. Ford gives the figures 

 thus : — 



"The veld per acre is probably about 11 piouls 

 which is sold by producers for about !J1.70 per picul, 

 i. e., $18-70 per acre, whicli, as tiie bark is on y ob- 

 tained once in six years, gives but $.S. 1 1 per annum 

 per acre for th« bark, but in addition to this a little 

 nmst be added for the income from the sale of leaves 

 and "bads ;'' tlie former, however, would be very 

 small as they only realize about 20 cents per picul 

 when dry, tlie latter fetch $15 per picul and are a 

 yearly income ; hut no satisfactory information could 

 be obtained as to the production per acre " 



A gross money return of under R40 per acre 

 pt-r annum is poor enough, in all conscience, witli- 

 out foUowmg Mr. Ford Into what we cannot but 

 consider an error, from his want of knowledge of the 

 system adopted in cinnamon culture. With us there 

 are many, perhaps a dozen plants in the same stool, 

 the stems of which are cut annually, in succession, 

 as they attain the age of about tluee years. It is 

 possiljle, although Mr. Ford did not notice it, that 

 the same system is adopted by the Chinese cassia 

 cultivators, but, even if there is only one plant in 

 each hole, it is not credible that all the trees would be 

 cut down simultaneously, and that then there would be 

 a blank in harvestmg for six years ! Mr. Ford describes 

 a system of coppicing, whicli nnist, as in Ceylon, 

 result in stems wliich will ripen at varymg periods 

 and so be ready for cutting, year by year. Instead, 

 therefore, of the starvation return of §3 ' 11 per acre per 

 annum (a little over R6 !), the gross return from bark, 

 twigs and buds must be somewhat over R40 per acre 

 per annum, of which probably 1120 net remain to the 

 grower. 

 Mr. Ford remarks : — 



"It has been thought that the 'yield is gradually 

 decreasing ' in const qiierce of the ' prices of late 

 years shewing no profit to producers. ' From the 

 fallowing table of the quantities and vnlnes of ciasia 

 ixported from Canton the above assertion is scarcely 

 lioriie out, as although the yield in ISSl was much 

 lens than in 187&, yet it compares fnvouiably with 

 the past ten years, being higher than in 1871 — 73 — 

 74 — 75 — 71' — 77, and SO. and not much less than m 

 1872 ; 1879 seems to have been the be-it year on 

 i-ecor.l, civer 100,000 picids having been exported. 

 Although the yield does not thus feem to be cle- 

 crL■a^ing yet the prices have fnlleu very much ; in 

 187.'> they fell to less tban one half what they h.ad 

 been for the previous 13 year.=, and they bavo not 

 hince recovered, but seem rather to be a little de- 

 creasing. In spite of these bad times the producers 

 continue to make large annual new jhintations, which 

 would seem to indicate that there is still some pro- 

 tit to be made." 



If the figures which Mr. Ford has borrowed from 

 Simmonds' book can be depended on. then the in- 

 crease m the export of cassia from Cliina in twenty 

 years has been enormous and quite accounts for the 

 depression in the Ceylon cinnamon trade. The rise 

 has been from 7,683 piculs, say a little over one 

 million of pounds, to over 13^ uiillious in 1879. For 



1882 the export could not be much less, as the estun- 

 ates Mr. Ford obtained were 



For Lotmg district 50,000 piculs, 



„ Taiwu 32,000 ,, 



Total 82,000 „ 



say about 11 millions of pounds, without countmg 

 twigs. Can any of our readers, interested in cmna- 

 mon, .supply us with figures shewing the imports into 

 Britain of Ceylon cinnamon and China cassia for a 

 series of years ? No doubt an appreciable quantity 

 of China cassia goes to other countries, but, as a good 

 deal probably goes to Britain, we should be able in 

 some degree to test the correctness of figures which 

 have taken us utterly by surprize. Messrs. Russell 

 & Co. of Canton and Hongkong, who supplied Mr' 

 Ford with specimens of bark, &c., could, no doubt, supJ 

 ply valuable information as to the history of the rapid 

 rise and progress in the past twenty years of a trade 

 which has so seriously affected the cinnamon interests 

 of Ceylon. Our exports of fine cinnamon, including 

 chips, was for last season close on two millions of 

 pounds. The exports of inferior cinnamon from China, 

 the Eastern Archipelago, India, Burmah and all other 

 producing countries (which, of course, supplied their 

 own wants), must have been from seven to tenfold 

 our exports. Mr. Ford's visit to the cassia districts 

 was so timed that he arrived (in the flowering season, 

 so that he was able finally to solve the botanical 

 question, and, besides a set of the instruments used 

 in the process of decortication, he brought back plants, 

 some of which were to be sent to other colonies. Dr. 

 Trimen will soon be able to tell us if the China cassia 

 is in reality anything more than a variety of the true 

 cinnamon, influenced by circumstances of climate and 

 culture. Indeed, the technical description given by Mr. 

 Ford, which we do not quote, may settle this question! 

 The probability is that China cassia beai-s the same 

 relation to Ceylon cinnamon that China tea does to 

 that of Assam. The largest tree Mr. Ford saw was 

 40 feet high : 3 in circumference with bark J inch 

 thick. Some of the cinnamon trees in our forests 

 are, perhaps, a little taller than 40 feet ? There were 

 no varieties of the one species, and it does not seem 

 to grow wild in China, although it is said to be 

 found in the forests of Cochin-China. * Mr. Ford has 

 " No doubt but that writers who have named other 

 kinds as cassia yielding trees of China have been mis- 

 taken or misinformed on the subject. One writer 

 alludes to a tree in terms which partly correspond 

 to the description of Atachilus velntitia. Champ., an- 

 other tree belonging to Lauraceae and indigenous to 

 South China. It is quite possible that this tree may 

 have been supposed by a casual observer to yield 

 cassia bark bec.iuse it is sometimes grown in plant- 

 ations intermixed with those of Cinnamomum Ca.ssia. 

 The trees are reared, planted, and treated in precisely 

 the same manner as the cassia trees, but the bark is 

 required for a very different use, viz., to supply a 

 glutinous extract which is used to stick together 

 powdered cassia bark and sandal-wood— /SoHtofesi al- 

 hmn — to form the joss sticks used for inceuse. Chi- 

 namomvm Burmnnni El., which it has been supposed 

 may probably yield "in jiait the cassia bark of the 

 Canton market " does not, I feel sure, supply cassia 

 bark to auy extent. I did not see it anywhere cul- 

 tivated, nor was it seen growing wild in any but very 

 small qu.-xutities, and these wild trees bore no signs 

 of havmg been cut as had the cassia trees ; mnay 

 natives were asked if it was ever used, but, with one 



*Tbe statement in the Enci/clopedia Brihmnica as to 

 tlie export of "wild" cassia from China is contrary to 

 what Mr. Ford states, and as Cocliin China marches with 

 C'hina all probability is in favour of wild trees in the 

 forests of both countries. 



