420 



SPICES A.TSD FEAGEANT WOODS. 



cardamoms, and fiimishes tlie best known sort. Its produce is 

 in great request throughout India, fetching as much as £30 the 

 candy of 600 lbs. About 192 candies are grown annually in 

 Travancore, and the usual crop in Malabar is reckoned at 100 

 candies annually. It flourishes on the mountainous parts of the 

 Malabar coast, and among the western mountains of AVynaad, 

 The bulbous plants, which grow three or four feet high, are pro- 

 duced in the recesses of the mountains by felling trees, and after- 

 wards burning them, for wherever the ashes fall in the openings 

 or fissures of the rocks, the plant naturally springs up. In the 

 third year the plants come to perfection, bearing abundantly for 

 a year or two, and then die. In Soonda Balagat, and other places 

 wher© cardamoms are planted, they are much inferior to those 

 grown in the wild state. It may be propagated by cuttings or 

 divisions of the roots. Not more than one-hundredth part of the 

 cardamoms raised in Malabar are used in the country. They 

 are sent in large quantities to the ports on the E,ed Sea, and the 

 Persian Gulf, up the Indus to Scinde, to Bengal and Bombay. The 

 price of Malabar cardamons at Madras, in June, 1853, was about 

 £3 the maund of 25 lbs. They fetch in the Bombay market £4 10s. 

 the maund of 40 lbs. Cardamoms form a universal ingredient in 

 curries, pillaus, &c. The seed capsules are gathered as they ripen, 

 and when dried in the sun are fit for sale. They should be chosen 

 full, plump, and difficult to be broken ; of a bright yellow color, and 

 piercing smell ; with an acrid bitterish, though not very unpleasant 

 taste, and particular care should be taken that they are properly 

 dried. 



5. Amomum Grana-Paradisi, which is indigenous to the islands 

 of Madagascar and Ceylon, yields an inferior sort of cardamoms, 

 known by the names of grains of paradise, or Meleguetta pepper. 

 These are worth in the English market only from Is, 2d. to Is. 4d. 

 per pound, while the long and Malabar cardamoms fetch 2s. 8d. 

 to 3s. 3d. the pound. This plant is a native of Guinea, and the 

 western parts of Africa about Sierra Leone. We imported from 

 thence in 1841, 7,911 pounds. 



The taste of these Guinea grains is aromatic and vehemently 

 hot or peppery. They are imported in casks from Africa, and are 

 principally used in veterinary medicine, and to give an artificial 

 strength to spirits, wine, beer, &c. The average quantity on which 

 duty was paid in the six years ending with 1840, was 16,000 

 lbs. per annum. They are esteemed in Africa the most wholesome 

 of spices, and generally used by the natives to season their food. 



Dr. Pereira, from a careful examination and close inquiry, is 

 of opinion that the Amomum Orana-Paradisi of Smith, and 

 the Amomum Melegueta of Eoscoe, are identical species. 



In the second volume of the " Pharmaceutical Journal," Dr. 

 Pereira states that the term "grains of paradise," or Melegueta, 

 has been applied to the produce of no less than six scitamineous 

 plants. At the present time, and in this country, the term is ex- 

 clusively given to the hot acrid seeds imported into England from 



