The fruit which appears soon after the blossoms, is a smooth, glossy, succulent, globular berry, from two-tenths to three-tenths of an inch in diameter, or about the size of a small pea. Planters do not allow the berries to ripen fully, because in that case they would be difficult to cure and would become black and tasteless, losing their aromatic property. When the berries have their full size in the month of August, though yet green in color, they are gathered.
The harvesting is done by hand, by breaking off the twigs and stems which bear the berries. These are placed on a raised wooden floor or terrace to dry on mats for from seven to twelve days in the sunshine. Great care should be taken to turn them, so as to expose them fully to the sun, to prevent their quality being injured by moisture. Some planters dry them in kilns.
The one who removes the berries from the trees keeps three persons busy gathering them below, who are usually women or children. Care must be taken to separate, as far as possible, all ripe berries from those which are green, as otherwise the crop will be made of inferior quality. The fruit, which necessarily ripens on the tree, before the bulk of the crop is harvested, falls to the ground and is of no commercial value, as it has lost its aromatic properties. The problem which the planter has to contend with of harvesting his crop before it ripens is a serious one, for the harvesting often must be done rapidly, and it is often difficult to obtain help enough among the indolent natives to pick the crop. Thus many thousand pounds often go to waste. In wet weather the system of smoking is sometimes adopted for drying. The proper degree of dryness is ascertained by the wrinkled appearance and by the dark or reddish-brown color of the spice and the rattling noise made by the seeds when they are shaken. When the berries begin to dry they are frequently laid in cloths to preserve them from the dews. They are exposed to the sun’s rays every day and removed under cover every evening until sufficiently dry. They lose one-third of their weight in drying. The breaking of the branches in gathering the fruit answers to a rude kind of pruning. The crop is very abundant, some trees yielding as high as 150 pounds of green or 100 pounds of dried berries.
ISLAND OF JAMAICA WEST INDIES
Pimento is exported chiefly from Kingston, Jamaica, in 120 to 130-pound bags. About one-third of the crop comes to the United States; most of the balance goes to England, whence it is exported to other countries. The pimento del tobasco tree, a native of Mexico, produces a larger berry than the true pimento, but it is less aromatic and is often used to adulterate the allspice of commerce, but the true pimento is so cheap that it is adulterated but very little. The pimento is ground on common burr stones. It is used for medicinal purposes to prevent the taste of nauseous drugs, and it stimulates and gives tone to the stomach. It is sometimes used in tanning some kinds of leather. The small trees are used for walking-sticks and for umbrella handles. The berry is crowned with a persistent calyx of a black or dark-purple color when ripe, and when the four short thick sepals are rubbed off a scar is left like an elevated ring. At the other extremity of the fruit there is a shorter stalk attached.
The berry has a brittle, woody shell or pericarp, easily cut, of a dark ferruginous-brown color externally. The roughness on the surface is caused by the small essential oil receptacles. The berry is less aromatic than the pericarp. Its hull consists of a delicate epidermis of large thin-walled cells with light or dark red contents which are called portwine cells (see illustrations). [Fig. 46], Chap. III.
HARVESTING OF ALLSPICE
The fruit is two-celled, each cell containing a single flattish or kidney-shaped berry. The embryo is large and spirally curved, and the berry, when ripe, is filled with a sweetish pulp, which has then partly lost the aromatic property which it contained in the unripe state. The aroma is supposed to be a mixture of the aromas of nutmegs, cloves, and cinnamon.