540 
FOURTH BULLETIN OF 
[i846e 
the average quantity for an orchard is from six to ten pounds for each tree. Some 
trees have produced, it is said, in their native soil, one hundred and fifty pounds in 
one season. The ordinary age is about seventy years, but in their native place 
ninety. In commerce, there are four different varieties of the clove known—the 
common, the female, the royal, and the wild or rice clove. The two latter are 
smaller and more scarce than the other kinds. The best cloves are large, heavy, 
have a hot taste and oily feel. Those which have had the essential oil extracted 
are shrivelled, and usually want the knob at the top. 
The Arabs are increasing their plantations by cutting down the cocoa and bana¬ 
nas trees, and clearing away the natural brushwood and planting this spice-tree, 
the produce of which, in a few years, no doubt, will be the principal export of this 
island. 
The next most important article of cultivation is the Jatropha manihot, which 
constitutes a very large part of the food of the inhabitants. It is cultivated in the 
same manner as in Brazil, but not used so much in the form of flour, and the Tapio¬ 
ca is very seldom extracted. It is very singular that the root in a raw state is a 
very active poison to the human and animal race, but after being subjected to 
boiling or dried in the sun until the acrid juice has escaped, it becomes one of the 
most wholesome and nutritious productions of the vegetable kingdom, and is sup¬ 
posed to furnish nutriment to three-fifths of the human race. The poisonous prin¬ 
ciple of this root is yet undetermined, but Guibourt thinks it is hydrocyanic acid; if 
so, it would probably be profitable to extract it, if a proper method was known. 
The cocoa-nut tree is also extensively cultivated for food, for the oil which is ob¬ 
tained from the mature fruit for a beverage, and for a spirit obtained from the fer¬ 
mented sap. The oil is obtained by crushing the mature fruit in a wooden mortar, 
in which a large stick of timber is made to revolve by means of a camel attached 
to the end of a long lever. The unripe fruit furnishes a very refreshing beyerage 
which may be drank by the most delicate, with perfect impunity, and the immature 
pulp may be eaten without any danger of exciting those diseases so common in 
tropical climates. This is one of the few examples in the vegetable kingdom, where 
a fruit may be eaten or used in any stage of its growth and be nutritious and per¬ 
fectly innocuous. 
The mango tree grows here to a very large size, and bears an abundance of fruit 
of large size and fine flavor. 
The cashew-nut is also very abundant. 
The oranges are vastly inferior to those cultivated in Brazil, which, no doubt, is 
to be attributed to the kind, and not to the climate or soil. 
The pine-apple is very abundant, and grows apparently without cultivation. 
Bananas and plantains can be obtained in any quantity and of a very good quali¬ 
ty, also pumpkins and culinary herbs. 
Among the indigenous plants found here, is the Hypoxis erecta, a small grass¬ 
like plant, having a yellow flower with six petals, disposed in a star-like manner. 
This plant grows abundantly in North and South America, and the bulbous root 
bruised and applied to wounds caused by poisonous serpents is supposed in some 
parts of the United States to be an effectual remedy. 
I observed on the uncultivated grounds of the low extent which borders the bay, 
the Nauclea gambir, a plant much cultivated in the East Indies, for an astringent 
extract called catechu, which it produces. I do not know that this plant is cul¬ 
tivated here, but it certainly could be to great advantage, as the specimens I saw 
were extremely large and flourishing. 
In the cultivated fields I saw the papaw, a plant that is common now through¬ 
out the tropics, although a native of America. The fruit, when cooked, is much 
esteemed by some persons, but it appears to have little to recommend it. Its great 
peculiarities are, that the juice of the unripe fruit is a most powerful and efficient 
vermifuge; the powder of the seed even answers the same purpose, and that a prin¬ 
cipal constituent of this juice is fibrine, a principal otherwise supposed to be pecu¬ 
liar to the animal kingdom and to fungi. It is also said by Dr. Lindley and other 
authors, that this tree has the singular property of rendering the toughest animal 
substances tender, by causing a separation of the animal fibre; its vapor even does 
this, for it is said that newly killed meat suspended among the leaves, and even 
old hogs and old poultry become tender in a few hours, when fed on the leaves and 
fruit . 
