146 HISTORY OF THE [book v. 
to extend or improve its growth: not one attempt 
in fifty to propagate the young plants, or to raise 
them from the seeds, in parts of the country 
where it is not found growing spontaneously, ha¬ 
ving succeeded. The usual method of forming a 
new piemento plantation, (in Jamaica it is called a 
walk), is nothing more than to appropriate a piece 
of woodland, in the neighbourhood of a plantation 
already existing, or in a country where the scat¬ 
tered trees are found in a native state, the woods 
of which being fallen, the trees are suffered to re¬ 
main on the ground, till they become rotten and 
perish. In the course of twelve months after the 
first season, abundance of young piemento plants 
will be found growing vigorously in all parts of 
the land, being, without doubt, produced from 
ripe berries scattered there by the birds, while the 
fallen trees, &c. afford them both shelter and shade. 
At the end of two years it will be proper to give 
the land a thorough cleansing, leaving such only 
of the piemento trees as have a good appearance, 
which will then soon form such groves as those I 
have described, and, except perhaps for the first 
four or five years, require very little attention af¬ 
terwards. 
I do not believe there is, in all the vegetable 
creation, a tree of greater beauty than a young 
piemento. The trunk, which is of a grey colour, 
smooth and shining, and altogether free of bark, 
rises to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. It 
