258 MAINE AGRICULTURAL LXl'ERIMliNT STATION. I906. 



CLOVES. 



Cloves are the dried flower buds of the clove tree Caryophyllus 

 arornatious, which belongs to the Myrtle family, as also does the 

 Allspice. The tree is an evergreen from 20 to 40 feet in height, 

 and is cultivated extensively in Brazil, the West Indies, India 

 and Zanzibar. The green buds in the process of growth, change 

 to a reddish color, at which stage they are removed from the 

 tree, spread out in the sun and allowed to dry, the color chang- 

 ing to the familiar deep brown of the cloves of commerce. One 

 of the most valuable ingredients of the clove is the volatile clove 

 oil. The ground cloves of commerce are liable to be deficient 

 in clove oil because when exposed to the air, it gradually disap- 

 pears. As there is a great demand for oil of cloves, it gives the 

 temptation to partially extract the oil from the ground cloves 

 of commerce. Furthermore, as there will always be more or less 

 of the stems with the clove buds even pure ground cloves will 

 frequently contain some of the stem. In most of the samples 

 here examined, clove stems were present from traces to a large 

 amount. Only in two samples, Nos. 7215 and 7217 did there 

 seem to be a particularly unusual large amount of clove stems. 

 Other than clove stems, no adulterant was found in the cloves 

 examined. The different samples, however, differ considerably 

 in quality, which may have been due to age or partial exhaus- 

 tion of the cloves. 



The analysis of the different brands of ground cloves exam- 

 ined are given on pages 264-267. 



GINGER. 



Ginger is the washed and dried, or decorticated (scraped) 

 and dried root stalk of Zinziber zingiber, an annual herb growing 

 to a height of from 3 to 4 feet. It is a native of India and 

 China, but is quite extensively cultivated in tropical America, 

 Africa and Australia. The root is dug when the plant is a year 

 old and when the stem has withered. If when freshly dug and 

 scalded to prevent sprouting, it is dried at once, it forms the 

 so-called black ginger of commerce. When decorticated it fur- 

 nishes what is known in commerce as white ginger. The best 

 variety of white ginger is Jamaica ginger. The scraped root 

 is sometimes bleached to make it still whiter, or may be sprinkled ' 

 with carbonate of lime. The light colored decorticated ginger 

 is usually selected for grinding. 



