2 SPICES CHAP. 



American tropics gave us only vanilla, capsicums, and 

 pimento. 



The colder climates of northern Europe and Asia 

 produced but few coriander, cumin, caraway seed, and 

 mustard and calamus root. 



Of the East Asiatic tropical spices most are not 

 really known in the wild state, and it is in many cases 

 actually doubtful as to where was their place of origin. 



The appreciation of spices as flavouring for the 

 simple rice food of the oriental, extending over unknown 

 ages, has perhaps caused the oriental to cultivate forms 

 of the aromatic trees and shrubs they met with in the 

 forests into the forms we now know them in, but it 

 must be admitted that in most cases the well-known 

 nutmegs, cloves, ginger, and others do not bear any 

 close resemblance botanically to anything we have since 

 met with in the forests. The cause of this disappear- 

 ance of the original plant may be perhaps due to the 

 removal to or enclosure in gardens of the plant when 

 found in a wild state. In the case of trees of which 

 the fruit is valuable, the native, on finding it in the 

 forest, may form a garden round them, or he may 

 transfer all the seedlings he can find to his garden, or 

 by steadily collecting the crop of seed annually, may 

 practically in time exterminate the plant in the forest, 

 while later selections of the most productive and 

 valuable forms may modify the fruit so much that we 

 can hardly now recognise it. 



Spices can be arranged according to the parts of the 

 plant which form the commercial product. Thus in 

 cloves it is the flower bud which is used ; in nutmegs, 

 vanilla, capsicums, pepper, it is the fruit ; ginger and 

 turmeric the underground stems, cinnamon and cassia 

 the bark. This is perhaps the most convenient way of 

 sorting them, and I have adopted it. 



Cultivations in general can be classified into groups 

 in the following way : 



1. Plantation cultivations, which are generally 

 effected on a large scale, and belong to the class of 



