Following the Ceylon in value are the Saigon, Java, and Batavia and China. The Saigon ([Fig. 5]) comes from Cochin China, taking its name from the city of Saigon. (See [illustration].) The thinner-quilled Saigon bark, which is from selected twigs and smaller branches, is known as Java ([Fig. 4]). It has a very dark color and possesses an aroma and strength superior to these qualities in the Saigon.
The Java is sold chiefly in the whole state (the outer rind is never removed) and in a variety of packages known as piculs, containing 135 pounds each, mostly in cases, sometimes valued higher than Ceylon. The Tellicherry and Malabar are from Bombay and the province of Malabar. The Tellicherry is equal to the Ceylon in appearance, but the interior surface is more fibrous and the flavor is inferior and the bark thicker. It is superior to the Malabar, which is the true cinnamon introduced into India by the English. The Malabar contains nearly all the qualities of the Ceylon, but is paler in color with a feeble and less permanent odor. The sticks after piping are in length equal to those of the Ceylon, but the bark is shorter and the length of the stick is due to the method of telescoping the sticks of bark into one another. Batavia bark ([Fig. 2]) has a pale straw color and is a heavy bark superior to China Cassia Lignea ([Fig. 3]). It is exported in rolls of about fifty pounds each.
The bark of the larger or coarser shoots cannot be quilled and is removed in thick pieces. When mixed with the bark of the prunings and with those sticks which do not peel well it is known as chips. It brings a low price on the market and is used for grinding; and, although it does not have the delicate flavor of the quilled, what is lacking in delicacy is made up in pungency and, therefore, in many cases, it is preferred. Chips bring so low a price in the market that they may be purchased by the miller of spices and sold in the pure powdered state at a price much below what he can sell the bark at. This fact may account in a measure for prices given in the table in chapter II, [page 7], on adulteration.
The exporting of cinnamon chips is carried on by the planters to a great extent and at a great detriment to themselves. By doing this there is shortsightedness on their part, as the chips are bought by the miller at a low price in place of the high-priced bark, which necessarily must partly go begging for a market. Thus, the more valuable product so depreciates as to leave but little profit for the grower; his margin of profit is so small that he does not give his cinnamon grove proper attention and many times cuts it for wood. If the planter would distill his waste pruning and coarse chips for the oil which they contain he would be well paid for his labor.
BATAVIA
SAIGON
The cultivators of cinnamon give employment to a large number of people, several thousand being now engaged in the cultivation of the trees and the preparation of the bark. The pruning immediately follows the cutting and consists in cutting out all wood of more than two years’ growth and reducing all stumps left too high and removing all weak and crooked shoots and superfluous branches. This waste material, with the weeding, is buried near the outer roots, as it is found that organic matter is an excellent fertilizer for cinnamon, as the shoots reach out in all directions and permeate the decaying matter and so bring much benefit to the tree. It will not do to raise a mound around the base of the trunk, as the roots are thereby forced against their natural course and throw themselves into the mound. When this is once done they must be allowed to remain, as any disturbance would injure the tree. When the Ceylon cinnamon tree becomes too old to produce good growth it is cut down and the bark removed from the larger branches and the trunk, and is called mate cinnamon.
Although the finest bark is obtained from the cultivated trees there is much bark obtained from the uncultivated, of which C. multiflorum and C. ovalufolium are used for purposes of adulteration.