106 
CULTURE OF THE RABBIT- BERRY. 
Ceylon has the outer portion much thinner^ in proportion to the inner, than the 
cassia of other countries ; and to that its higher pungency is attributed. 
Under favourable circumstances, the cinnamon-tree yields a large and a small 
harvest every year. The large one is obtained soon after the fruit is ripe ; that is, 
when the tree has again pushed out shoots, and the sap is in vigorous circulation. 
May and June are the best months in the year for the great harvest ; in November 
and December the little harvest is obtained. In those plantations which belong to 
government, however, there is but one harvest, beginning in May and ending in 
October. 
Though cinnamon has found a place in our Pharmacopoeia, the purpose to which 
it has been applied by the South Americans invests it with medicinal properties 
which it is not usually supposed to possess. " One thousand bales (92,000 lbs.) 
are said to be consumed annually by the slaves in the mines of South America. 
Each receives daily a certain quantity, cut into pieces one inch in length, which he 
eats as a preservative against the noxious effluvia of the mines." 
Oil of cinnamon was formerly obtained at Colombo, from distilling the fragments 
broken off in packing; latterly a great proportion has been made from coarse cinna- 
mon unfit for exportation. A very small quantity of oil is contained in the bark ; 
three hundred pounds of which are required to yield twenty-four ounces of oil, and, 
consequently, this is extravagantly dear. When made from the finest cinnamon 
its specific gravity is greater, but from the coarse sort it is less, than that of water. 
CULTURE OF THE RABBIT-BERRY. 
(SHEPHERDIA ARGENTEA.) 
This shrub is a native of North America, whence it has been lately in- 
troduced ; it forms a slender but neat shrub, and bears a profusion of good palat- 
able fruit, which are as good, if not better, than our best red currants. In the col- 
lections of plants in this country it grows very slowly, and rarely produces fruit, and 
what it does produce is of a very inferior quality. 
This deficiency probably arises from two causes ; first, because our summers are 
scarcely hot enough for its growth, and, secondly, because the soil in which it is 
usually planted is scarcely such as suits it. The soil of the vast plains on the banks 
of the Missouri, where the plant grows spontaneously, is rich and very light ; per- 
haps the nearest resemblance we can have to it is, a mixture of very rotten leaf soil 
and sandy heath mould : this therefore is the soil which seems to suit it best. 
If planted in the open air of this country, it requires a very warm situation, 
either a south-east wall, the front or end of a hothouse, or a very sheltered border 
where it will be affected by no cutting winds. Wherever it is planted it must not- 
be fully exposed to the mid-day sun, or be allowed to suffer from drought, and there 
is then every probability of the best success. 
If grown in pots the following mode of treatment may be adopted :-rPot the 
