178 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
injury. The cloves should be spread out on mats, if 
possible on a concrete floor, and not laid on the ground. 
He also points out that in gathering the buds should be 
picked in the best condition, neither too young nor too 
old. 
The Zanzibar cloves are small and often shrivelled, 
and of a poor colour, much inferior to Penang and 
Amboyna cloves. This may be due to the slow method 
of drying or to carelessness of the native workman. 
It is probable that careful drying by heat would 
give finer results than can be obtained under the best 
circumstances by sun-heat, and in the tropics one can 
never depend on having good drying days when the 
cloves are ripe for gathering. In any case it would be 
as well to have a good drying-room available for use in 
wet weather, in which the temperature could be raised, 
or a series of good drying ovens. 
The average weight of cloves produced by each tree 
in a season in Amboyna is given as 5 lbs., in Sumatra 
6 or 7 lbs., in Penang 5 lbs., while in the Moluccas 4^ 
lbs. is given as the usual crop. 
Allowing 100 trees to the acre, and that two-thirds 
of these are in full bearing condition, an acre will 
produce 375 lbs. of dry cloves. 
Consul Pratt of Zanzibar, in a Consular Keport, 
estimates the produce of a tree much higher. He says 
a ten-year-old plantation should produce an average of 
20 lbs. of cloves to a tree, and that trees of twenty 
years should give upwards of 100 lbs. each. This seems 
certainly to be exaggerated. 
PACKING 
Cloves are usually exported in gunny bags, but in 
Zanzibar double mat bags are used in preference. They 
are very liable to injury from sea- water, so that it is 
essential that the bags be sound and stored in a safe 
place on board. The best cloves are large and plump, 
but little wrinkled, and of a light purplish brown with 
