ALLSPICE, OR PIMENTO.
The pimento spice is native to this soil. The groves of these trees are
beautiful. The trees grow to a height of thirty feet, their stems are
smooth and clean, and their leaves glossy.
[Illustration: BRANCH AND BUD OF PIMENTO (ALL-SPICE).]
The trees bear fruit when about seven years old. The berries are
gathered green and dried in the sun. The branches to which the berries
are attached are broken off by boys and thrown to girls and women, who
pick off the berries, and take them to the drying places. One tree
sometimes bears a hundred pounds.
The tree likes the hills and mountains along the sea, a hot climate and
a dry atmosphere.
THE NUTMEG TREE.
The nutmeg tree grows to a height of thirty to fifty feet. The ripe
fruit looks somewhat like the apricot on the outside. It bursts in two
and shows the dark nut covered with mace, a bright scarlet. This is
stripped off and pressed flat. The shells are broken open when perfectly
dry, and the nuts powdered with lime to prevent the attacks of worms.
The tree bears the sixth or seventh year, - the nuts becoming ripe six
months after the flower appears. Twenty thousand nuts are sometimes
gathered from one tree.
Other important growths we find to be pepper, which begins to bear when
five years old and may bear for thirty years; the vanilla bean, which
proves to be very profitable when properly cared for; and cacao, which
requires eight years to come to full fruitage, but is an invaluable
plant.
