the clove in the island of
Dominica, about 1789, thus describes the results of his experience,
which may be useful to other experimental cultivators. He obtained a
few plants from Cayenne, and raised 1,600 trees from seed, which, in a
year from the first sowing, were transplanted. The seeds were sown at
about six inches apart from each other, in beds; over these beds small
frames were erected about three feet from the ground, and plantain
leaves were spread on the top, in order to shelter the young plants
from the sun. The leaves were allowed gradually to decay, and at the
end of nine months the young plants, which by that time were strong,
were permitted to receive the benefit of the sun; but if not protected
from it when very young, they were found to droop and die.

When transplanted, the trees were placed at sixteen feet apart from
each other. They grew very luxuriantly, and at the end of fifteen
months after their removal, attained the height of from three to four
feet. The ground wherein they were planted had been a coffee
plantation during forty years. The coffee trees had decayed, and an
attempt had been made to replace them; but they refused to grow;
whereas the clove plants flourished as if on congenial soil, and a
crop was gathered on some of them when they were not more than six
years old, which period is two or three years earlier than the usual
time for gathering.

The cloves sent from St. Vincent to England in 1800, were obtained
from trees eight feet high, having a stem only two inches in diameter.
Trial was made in that island of the relative growth of the plant on
different soils; it grew sickly on land which was not manured, but on
land which had received this preparation it flourished.

In Singapore, about ten years ago, there were then about 15,000 clove
trees planted out, a few of which only had come in bearing. If these
plantations had proved equally productive with those of the sister
settlement of Pinang, it would have been able to export 60,000 lbs. of
cloves, its own produce; but this expectation, it will be seen, has
not been realised. In the season of 1841-42, there was 1000 piculs of
cloves shipped from Pinang, but none were exported in the two previous
years.

The quantity of land under cultivation with cloves there, in 1843, was
463 orlongs in Prince of Wales Island, and 517 in Province Wellesley.
The number of trees planted out in the former island was 72,779; in
the latter provinc