A cinnamon plantation, even in a favorable locality, seldom yields much return until eight or nine years have elapsed.

The mode of cultivation pursued by the natives differs from that followed in the plantations of the Europeans.  The native system is to allow the cinnamon to grow large before cutting; the European practice is to cut it young.  The result is that the native produces quantity, but coarse; the European produces quality, but less in quantity.  I have found, in conversation with the native growers, that they consider the bush or tree decidedly weakened by its being kept down by constant cutting twice a year; and that their plants are stronger and better.  It is not absolutely an original opinion, but I think the two systems might be judiciously blended.  In cutting the cinnamon sticks for peeling, as the Europeans do it twice a year, there is always risk of losing much valuable young wood, which is destroyed in slashing into the bushes with catties (bill-hooks) to take out that which is in a fit state for peeling, all of which is so much loss from the next cutting; and on this ground I should be inclined to advocate cutting once a year.  There are, I know, other considerations than the mere growth of the sticks to be taken into account.  Of these may be named the time when the bark peels best from the stick, which of course must depend upon age as well as season, the excited or unexcited state of the shoots, and their several effects upon the quality of the spice.

Weeding the plantations does not seem to be of so much consequence, if the shrub gets plenty of free air all round it.

Cinnamon land continues to yield abundantly crop after crop, not for years, but for scores of years.  The greater portion of the late preserved plantations in Ceylon were planted by the Dutch, one hundred years ago, and the bushes are stated to be as vigorous as ever, and quite likely to go on yielding crops till the year 2000.  This productiveness can only be accounted for on Liebig’s principle of returning to the soil a portion of what we take from it.  In the operation of peeling cinnamon, the tops and lateral branches are cut off, and left by the peelers on the ground close to the bushes.  These, no doubt, furnish a considerable quantity of manure to the plants.

The general appearance of the plantation is that of a copse, with laurel leaves and stems, about the thickness of hazel; occasionally a tree may be seen which, having been allowed to grow for seed, has reached a height of forty or fifty feet, with a trunk eighteen inches in diameter.  When in full bloom, the cinnamon bushes have a very beautiful appearance, the small white petals affording a most agreeable contrast with the flame-colored extremities of the upper, and the dark green of the inferior foliage, with the blossoms of various lovely parasitical plants.