The DUTCH and Cloves

CLOVEs. This spice, so universally used, is among the earliest mentioned in any history. It derives its name from its close resemblance to a small nail: in all nations where it is spoken of, the same word is employed to designate both—cloves and nail. In France it is called clou, in Portugal, cravas, in Spain, clavas, among Latin speaking nations, clavus, each term, in the respective languages, meaning nail as well as cloves. “The clove of commerce is the product of the most beautiful, the most elegant and the most precious of all known trees.” It is a native of the true, original Moluccas. It there grows to the height of forty feet. It begins to yield the spice blooms at seven years old, and continues to bear one or two hundred years. The trunk, like the cocoanut, is perfectly straight, covered with a smooth bark of a light olive color. The branches spring out about twenty feet from the ground, horizontally, and growing very thickly, becoming shorter as they climb toward the top, where a compact mass of laure lshaped leaves crowns the highest point and forms a perfectly-shaped cone, supported by a clean, straight stem. Very many who use cloves as a spice understand that this small, nail-shaped, brownish-looking thing is the bud, and not the fruit—not even a full blossom. Before this bud is quite unfolded into the perfect flower it is gathered. It resembles, at that stage, a closely-folded convolvulus bud. At the extreme end of every twig and branch of these beautiful trees a dozen or more of these buds form a terminal cluster—first, the nail-like bud, which, if not gathered at this stage, unfolds like a fully-opened lily or convolvulus, only that from the centre shoot out innumerable stamens and anthers, filling the whole cup, like a pin-ball filled with long, large-headed pins, extending half the length of the cup or flower. Judging from the descriptions in the various cyclopaedias, especially the American, which gives the picture of a large terminal cluster, nothing can be more beautiful than a clove tree in full bloom. The stem of the clove,which we buy for spice, is the calyx, and the round, brownish head, as we see it, is the unblown corolla of these fragrant flower buds. In the Moluccas these buds are gathered in December. They are picked with as littie delay and as carefully as possible, as soon as they reach the proper stage, and speedily dried in the shade, so as to prevent, as much as can be, the exhalation or loss of the aroma. In 1521, when the Portuguese and the Spaniards first visited the Molucca Islands, they took on board their ship the first cargo of this and other spices belonging to these islands that was ever brought to Europe. These islands were then inhabited by an industrious and enterprising population, engaged almost exclusively in the cultivation of this valuable production. The clove tree was then exclusively cultivated in the Moluccas, but is now a valuable article of commerce from Sumatra, Bourbon, Mauritius and some parts of the West Indies, and will no doubt soon be common in most of the tropical regions, although that grown in its native soil still continues to be regarded as the best. In the seventeenth century the Dutch took possession of these spice islands, driving out the Portuguese, who had held them for ninety-three years, restricting the culture and preventing the free exportation of the spice. After driving out the Portuguese the Dutch established large plantations for clove culture in Amboyna, where the natives had previously introduced it before conquered by the Portuguese. “Then they, like Vandals, to secure to their own colonists a monopoly of the trade, commenced to destroy every clove tree that grew upon those islands that were their native home. Once a year they sent to Ternate, Tidor, Motir, Makian and Banshien an expedition to uproot every clove bush which migratory birds might chance to plant in their flight over the native soil of the clove ; and any native of these islands who was found to have planted a clove tree, or to have sold one ounce of these spicy buds, was put to death."

When these worse than barbarians had done this cruel work and all the lovely, magnificent forests of fragrant wood were destroyed, the fertile volcanic soil was washed away by tropical rains or scorched by the tropical sun. The land became sterile, and, having lost their trade and food, the people perished of starvation at home, or were made slaves on the plantations of Amboyna. Not only did the Dutch destroy all the clove trees of the other Molucca Islands, but also annually burned a large portion of the products of Amboyna, and in that way enhanced the value of what remained in the hands of the monopolists. This annual burning was continued until 1824.

The clove trees of Amboyna fall far short of those that were grown in their native soil. All the skill that has been brought into service to bring them back to their original beauty and magnificence has not succeeded in repairing the great injury done when the Dutch cruelly rooted them out from the Moluccas. In the region where they imperiously decided it should only be cultivated—Amboyna— the trees seldom attain to more than half their natural size, are not half as productive, and, instead of living and bearing from one to two hundred years, they seldom live over seventy years, and do not begin to bear till fifteen years old; whereas in the Moluccas it has been introduced into Bencoolen, the Straits settlements of Sumatra, at Zanzibar, in the French islands of Reunion and Cayenne, but thus far no skill or care can bring back its past glory. Doubtless there will be efforts made to replant the Moluccas with this beautiful tree, if, indeed, the attempt has not already been made. But when the Dutch rooted out and burned every tree on those islands they left the soil without any protection from the fierce heat of the tropical sun or the great rain storms of that climate; so the sun burned out all vitality from that light volcanic soil, and the floods washed a great portion of it into the sea. Now that once lovely, fertile land is like a desert, almost entirely unfruitful. To have the clove tree in perfection it must have the heat of the tropics, a mountainous declivity—the soil should be rich, loose, dry, what is known there as volcanic soil, but well-wooded, and overshadowed by the clouds and vaporous mists that rise up from such a soil.

All of the above necessities for raising the perfect clove tree and the promise of abundant fruit were combined in perfection in the Moluccas until the destroyer came and with ruthless hand uprooted all that was lovely and left these unfortunate islands desolate. One can not repress the emotion-intense indignation—when imagining what they were before invaded by cruel oppressors and then remembering what they now are.

Cloves are sometimes used medicinally, as a stimulant to digestion, but the oily cloves more frequently used to mollify or soothe the action of certain kinds of medicines. A tablespoonful of the infusion of cloves given every hour or two will often relieve nausea or excessive vomiting. The taste of offensive medicines—cod liver oil and the like—is hardly perceptible in taking immediately after chewing a few cloves. Clove fruit when ripe resembles the olive in some respects, but is not quite so large, and when fully matured is of a dark red color. It is sometimes seen in commerce in a dried state, and is then, singularly, called by the name of “Mother Cloves." It tastes and smells like the bud, but is weaker. The broken fruit stalks are also sometimes used for the same purposes as the clove, but the flower buds themselves are the most important part of the production of the clove tree for commerce, and is familiar to every one, especially to housekeepers. 



"For as long as Holland hes been Holland, there have never arrived ships as richly laden as these,' noted an anonymous obsewer of the cargoes that contained 600,000 pounds of pepper and 250,000 pounds of cloves, nutmeg,