86 
LAURUS CINNAMOMUM. 
ill the valleys, in a white, sandy soil, are fit to be barked when four oi- 
five years old, but those in a wet soil, or in shady places, require to be 
seven of eight years of age ; the bark is good for nothing if the tree 
be more than eighteen years old. The barking commences early in 
May, and continues until late in October. Branches of three years 
old are selected and lopped off with a pruning knife or bill-hook ; 
the outer bark or coating is then scraped off with a knife of a pecu- 
liar form, concave on one side, and curved on the other: with the 
point of this knife the bark is ripped up longwise, and the curved 
side is then employed in gradually loosening it from the branch till 
it can be taken off entire ; in this state it appears in the form of 
tubes, open at one end. The bark is now tied up in bundles, and 
allowed to remain for twenty-four hours, by which a fermentation is 
produced, that facilitates the separation of any remaining cuticle, 
which, with the green pulpy matter under it, is carefully scraped off; 
the smaller pieces are then put within the larger, and by being dried 
in the sun they contract, until they attain the form in which they are 
seen in the European market.* The cinnamon thus prepared, is 
lodged in the government stores, where it undergoes a careful exami- 
nation, and is sorted according to its quahty. It is brought to 
Europe in bundles of about 80lbs. weight, which are packed as 
closely as possible in the hold of the vessel, and all the interstices 
filled up with black pepper, to preserve it from injury.f The quantity 
of cinnamon annually sold at the East India Company's sales, ave- 
rages 318,258lbs. at an average of six shillings per lb. ; but a good 
deal of an inferior quality is imported by private merchants from 
China and other places.J 
cinnamon, so called from its having the odoar of camphor, and the root yielding this 
substance by distillation ; and 4. Bitter astringent cinnamon, which has smaller leaves 
jhan the former varieties. 
* Native officers are appointed to superintend these operations, and who are answer- 
able for the quantity barked. 
+ The bags in which it is enclosed are made of cloth of the cocoa-nut bark, 
t Cinnamon is cultivated at Quang-sy, in China, and of a very line quality in the 
central mountains of Cochin China. It has lately been found to arrive at tolerable 
perfectioa in sheltered situations in Lower India..— Ainslie' s Materia Indica, vol, i. p. 
73. We are told by De Comyn, in his " State of the Phillippine Islands," that the 
cinnamon plant is found in its native state in the interior of Peru. 
From the above accounts, it would appear that the Laarus Cinnamomnm is not 
confined to Asia, but that it is also a native of the new world. 
