Vegetable substances used for the food of man / by Dr. Lankester. With illustrations.

  • Lankester, Edwin, 1814-1874.
Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / by Dr. Lankester. With illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    359/410 (page 349)
    been produced, from the earliest records, so abun- dantly, that in exchange for their spicy produce, the inhabitants were enabled, before the intrusion of the Europeans into their country, to procure for them- selves the productions which they required of almost every other region. Although Europeans have for more than two thousand years known the use of this spice, yet little more than three hundred years back they were ignorant whence it was obtained. ‘The Persians, Arabians, and Egyptians formerly brought cloves and nutmegs to the ports in the Mediterranean, and hither the Venetians and Genoese resorted to buy the spices of India, until the Portuguese, in 1511, discovered the country of their production. This» nation did not, however, long enjoy the fruits of its discovery; the Dutch soon drove them from the Moluccas, and for a long time retained a very strict monopoly over the productions of these islands. It is said that they destroyed the clove trees growing on the other islands, and confined their culture wholly to Amboyna. They allotted to the inhabi- tants four thousand parcels of land, on each of which it was expected that one hundred and twenty- five trees should be cultivated ; and in 1720 a law was passed compelling the natives to make up this num- ber: there were in consequence five hundred thou- sand clove-trees planted in this small island, each of these on an average produced annually more than two pounds of cloves, so that the aggregate pro- duce weighed more than a million of pounds. Sub- sequently to this period, the policy of the Dutch somewhat relaxed, and the tree has been suffered to grow on other islands, and even to be carried to the West Indies; where, however, it does not appear until very lately to have succeeded, Sir Joseph Banks introduced it into this country about 1797, 2H