NOTES ON THE RUSSIAN TALLOW TRADE. 429 
productions, is exceedingly uncertain, and perhaps a very plenteous 
crop occurs but once in rive years. 
Before the war with Russia there was a large demand for pimento 
in that country, for use in spiced bread, but during the blockade it was 
found that a tree growing on the banks of the Amoor, yielded a bark 
which, when grated, was pungent enough to supply the pepper, and 
aromatic enough to yield the spice, and the Russian market was thus 
lost. Pimento is used as a spice in cooking, and in medicine in weak 
digestion, to relieve flatulency, &c. The dried fruit and flower buds of 
Myrtus communis were formerly used as a spice, and are said to be so 
still in Tuscany. 
Pimento exists in sufficient abundance in many parts of the parish 
of Hanover, Jamaica, but the price has frequently fallen so low as 
l£d. per lb., making it scarcely worth the expense of picking. From 
Hanover there were shipped 7,100 lbs. in 1855, 8,800 lbs. in 1856, 
67,644 lbs. in 1857, and 184,459 lbs. in 1858. 
In 1850, 1,022 tons of pimento were imported into the United 
Kingdom ; in 1855, 2,115 tons, of which 1,200 tons were re-exported ; 
in 1860, the imports were 1,000 tons, and in 1865, 1,279 tons. 
NOTES ON THE RUSSIAN TALLOW TRADE. 
BY J. R. JACKSON. 
A Government Blue Book is not the kind of literature usually taken up 
to while away half an hour, still less do we see such a book in the hands 
of railway travellers or upon our drawing-room tables. A Blue Book 
indeed has an awfully official appearance, and perhaps is little known, 
except in particular instances, beyond the great commercial circles of 
London, Liverpool, Manchester, and those towns of smaller repute, but 
which fraternise with the above busy centres. If we take up the trade 
reports furnished to the British Government by Her Majesty's ministers 
abroad, though we may find an interminable list of figures, we shall 
also find much interesting matter. In a very voluminous report upon 
the present state of the trade between Great Britain and Russia recently 
laid before Parliament, are the following notes upon the Russian tallow 
trade, which may perhaps be interesting to the readers of the Tech- 
nologist : — 
Tallow is one of the principal articles of export from Russia, and in 
reality conduces more to the prosperity of the country than probably 
all the manufactures of Russia put together, and yet only one cask of 
P. Y. C. was deemed worthy of a place at the Exhibition of Russian 
