156 HISTORY OF THE [book v, 
they were transplanted, and most of them are between three 
and four feet high, apparently very healthy. The ground 
wherein they are planted, had been under coffee for forty 
years ; the coffee trees had decayed, which I tried in vain 
to replace, but they would not grow. Being disappointed, 
X turned it into a pasture, which, from neglect, was cover¬ 
ed with guava bushes, a plant very prejudicial to any soil; 
I then resolved to clear it, and plant my clove trees in it. 
This pasture ground, on the whole, is of a compact, strong, 
gravelly soil; in some parts is of a clayey nature ; but the 
trees grow well in both. 
As Abbe Raynal has been very exact in his description of 
the clove, I shall adopt the same from his history. “ The 
“ flowers of the clove tree are disposed in a corymbus ter- 
“ minalis; they have each of them a long quad rifled ca~ 
“ lix, which bears as many petals, and a great number of 
“ stamina ; the pistil, inclosed at the bottom of this calix, 
“ becomes along with it an oviform fruit, filled up with 
“ a single kernel, and known by the name of mother of 
“ clove ; this same calix, gathered before the unfolding of 
“ the petals and the fecundation of the pistil, is the clove 
“ as sold in the shops. The clove is fit to be gathered when 
“ it has acquired a reddish cast, and a certain degree of 
“firmness.” The two clove trees, which I planted in 
December 1789, appeared with clove buds, on or about 
the 20th of January 1795, some of the cloves were fit to 
be gathered in May and June following; and such of the 
cloves as were left on the trees for the purpose of obtaining 
the mother of cloves, for seeds, acquired a proper degree of 
maturity, in July and August: so that allowing those two 
trees to be about one year old when they came to me, from 
the seeds which I planted I judge they were of that age; 
I think the clove tree becomes productive in the course of 
little more than six years, instead of nine years, as men¬ 
tioned by Abbe Raynal. 
