IV 



CLOVES 179 



a purplish bloom on them. If gathered unripe or too 

 soon they become small and shrivelled. If insufficiently 

 dried they are apt to go mouldy, and if they are too 

 rapidly dried they become black, brittle, and wrinkled. 

 These small black shrivelled cloves find indeed a market, 

 but at a much lower value than full-sized, plump, brown 

 buds. 



Though Zanzibar and Pemba produce quite two- 

 thirds of the total crop for the year, they do not produce 

 the finest cloves, which are those of Penang. 



METHODS OF CULTIVATION IN ZANZIBAR AND PEMBA 



I give here the accounts of cultivation of cloves in 

 plantations known as shambas in Zanzibar and Pemba. 

 These accounts were published in the Zanzibar periodical, 

 the Shamba, and in the Annual Report of the Agri- 

 cultural Department of Zanzibar, and are reprinted in 

 the Tropical Agriculturist in 1900. They are both of 

 interest, as showing not only the methods of culture, 

 but also the approximate cost of cultivation and returns. 



The first article is entitled " The Story of a Clove 

 Plantation." The author, whose name is not given, 

 commences as follows : 



The shamba (estate) in question is known as Kizimbani, 

 about half an hour inland from Weti, Pemba. It was selected 

 by Canon Key as a missionary site chiefly because of its situa- 

 tion on the Suka Road, one of the arteries which feed Weti 

 from the north. Kizimbani contains in all 1,100 clove trees, 

 950 of which are bearing, the other 150 being unproductive. 

 K.1,132-8-0 were paid for the clove shamba, originally two, and 

 R.155 for three patches of waste land adjoining, in all R.1,287-8-0. 

 Occupation was entered into in January 1898, and clove picking 

 began on October 29, lasting until February 21, 1899. Three 

 pice a pishi was given to pickers, the legal measure being 

 used. Arabs in the locality also gave 3 pice per pishi, but used 

 the native wooden measure, always used in the plantations for 

 clove picking, both in Zanzibar and Pemba, and which contains 

 a little more than the metal one used by the shop-keepers. 

 Canon Key gave his people 2 pice per pishi daily, and banked 

 the other pice for them till the season was finished, an arrange- 



