FOREST TREES. 



67 



to be surrounded are cut away from about it, and thus the 

 pimento walk is laid out. The same thing, he said, was 

 true of the guava. He intimated an impression that a pro- 

 per analysis of the soil in which the seed germinated would 

 probably reveal the secret, hitherto inviolate, by the aid of 

 which the pimento could be cultivated from its seed. 



This statement becomes the more astonishing when the 

 fact is considered that Jamaica has exported over three 

 millions of pounds of this spice in a single year. 



The forests of Jamaica abound with the rarest cabinet 

 woods, in wonderful variety. I was shown a beautiful box, 

 the top of which was inlaid with thirty different choice and 

 rich indigenous specimens. 



Among the trees of most value in various ways may be 

 mentioned the bread fruit tree, which takes a fine polish ; 

 the satin wood ; the cedar, which grows to an immense 

 size ; the cotton tree, the body of which is cut out by the 

 negroes for canoes ; the bamboo, one of the most useful 

 trees on the island ; the trumpet tree, the bark of which 

 is used for cordage and the body for other purposes ; the 

 black and green ebony ; lignunivitge ; the palmetto, which 

 sometimes grow one hundred and forty feet in height, and 

 others. The mahogany is native to Jamaica, but is now 

 getting quite scarce, so extensively has it been cut and ex- 

 ported during the past forty years. 



It is proper to say that some of the parishes require irri- 



