THK WEST INDI.W LIME. 



177 



emptied in heaps ready for the women to extract the essential oil pre- 

 vious to its being carted to the mill. 



There are many advantages gained by only collecting the fallen fruit, 

 one of the chief being that it enables the proprietors to obtain a more 



uniform juice, as by this means only ripe and mature fruit is made use of, 

 \\-hereas if the fruit was plucked from the trees it would take a consider- 

 able time, owing to the many spines, and fruit of all stages of ripeness 

 would be mixed together, and the trees mere or less damaged by the 

 op eration. 



N 



