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352 Particular Account of the Cinnamon, 
quantity of oil which the finer cinnamon yields, however, valu- 
able, does not fetch a price equal to what the cinnamon itself 
brings on being exported to Europe ; and the oil from the 
coarser kinds is of a very inferior quality. 
After this description of cinnamon, and the processes em- 
ployed in bringing it to market, it may not be unimportant to 
enquire how this valuable branch of commerce may be im- 
proved or extended. The growth of cinnamon seems to have 
been confined by nature to the island of Ceylon ; for at Ma- 
labar, Batavia, the isle of France, and indeed every other 
place to which it has been transplanted, it has uniformly de- 
generated. Even in Ceylon it is found in perfection only on 
the south-west coast. In the northern parts, and about the 
harbour of Trincomalee, it cannot be reared ; and there- 
fore it must always be sought on that coast which the want 
of harbours renders most inconvenient for exportation. The 
season at which the cinnamon is prepared, however, suits with 
the time at which the ships touch at Columbo sufficiently well 
to prevent any great disadvantage aifising from this circum- 
stance. The principal accession which the cinnamon-trade can 
receive is from the introduction of an improved method of 
cultivating the plant. Of late years the rearing it by art has 
been attended with every success, and the plantations are already 
in a flourishing state, under the active management of governor 
North. Two principal advantages may be derived from an im- 
proved system of planting. By carefully selecting cinnamon 
seeds and plants of the first quality, the whole grounds, which 
are at present unprofitably occupied with coarser kinds, may 
be made to produce the finer species. If the system of plan- 
tation were once fully established, the cinnamon grounds might 
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