CASSIA BAEK. 



395 



40,0001133. were received from India in 1848 ; and 3,795 arrobas 

 of cassia were exported from jManila in 1847. In 1852, 2,806 

 cwts. of cassia were received at Singapore from China, and 1,380 

 cwts. exported from that settlement to the Continent, against 

 903 cwts. shipped in the previous year. 



AVhat the Ceylon spice-grower wants, is an extended field of 

 operation — a larger class of consumers to take off his cinnamon, 

 and this can only be obtained by bringing it within the means of 

 the gi^eat mass of cassia buyers. 



Look at the quantity of cinnamon exported by the Dutch in 

 the middle of the eighteenth century^ Eight or nine thousand bales 

 a year were exported, and now, after a lapse of a hundred years, 

 CeyJon hardly sends away half that quantity. Yet the consump- 

 tion of spice must have kept pace with the increased population 

 of countries using it, and so it has. But the difference is made 

 up, and more than made up, by cassia from China, Java, Sumatra, 

 Malabar Coast, &c., and though the new article is not equal to 

 the cinnamon of Ceylon, yet the vast difference in the price ob- 

 tains for it the preference. JSTow what the Ceylon planter wants, 

 is to be allowed to produ.ce a spice on equal terms, and of a 

 superior quality to cassia, which might be done under an ad 

 valorem export duty of 5 per cent. Spice of this description of 

 course could not afford the high cultivation bestowed on the fine 

 qualities, neither would it be required. In fact little or no cul- 

 tivation need be given it. At present anything inferior to the 

 third sort is not worth producing, because it cannot stand the 

 shilling export duty. But under a more enlightened system of 

 things, with a low duty such as I suggest, myriads of bushes would 

 spring up on those low, sandy, and at present unprofitable wastes 

 that skirt the sea-coast of the western province, around Negombo 

 and Chilaw. 



The difference of duty would be more than made up by the 

 diffusion of capital in planting, the employment of vast numbers 

 of laborers, the purchase from Grovernment of many thousand 

 acres of now valueless flats, and all the attendant benefits arising 

 out of the development of a new field of operation for the colonial 

 industrial resources.* 



The cassia tree grows naturally to the height of 50 or 60 feet, 

 with large, spreading, horizontal branches. The peelers take off 

 the two barks together, and separating the rough outer one, which 

 is of no value, they lay the inner bark to dry, which rolls up and 

 becomes the Cassia lignea of commerce. It resembles cinnamon in 

 taste, smell and appearance. The best is imported from China, 

 either direct from Canton, or through Singapore, in smiall tubes or 

 quills, sometimes the thickness of the ordinary pipes of cinnamon 

 and of the same length ; but usually they are shorter and thicker, 

 and the bark itself coarser. It is of a tolerably smooth siu-face 

 and brownish color, with some cast of red, but much less so than 



* Since tkese remarks were written, the duty has been wholly abolished. 



