The harvesting of the flower-buds commences immediately after they assume a bright red color. Such blossoms as can be reached are plucked by hand, while those that grow on the upper branches are beaten down with bamboo poles and caught in clothes spread beneath the trees. They are then dried in the shade or by hanging on hurdles over slow wood fires—they lose about half their weight in the drying process. They are usually finished off in the sun, which gives them a darker color. The quicker they are dried the less the loss of aroma. Good cloves have a strong aromatic smell, a hot, spicy taste and a light brown or tan color. The season for harvesting is from September to March. A 10-year-old tree yields about 20 lbs. of cloves a year, the yield increasing up to 100 lbs. for a 20-year old tree.

Penang cloves are from the Straits Settlements. They are large, plump and of a bright color. Amboyna cloves are not so large as the Penang and are of a dark brown color. Zanzibar cloves are smaller than the Amboyna, a bright reddish color and generally very dry. Pemba cloves are small and dark in color and mostly arrive in a damp condition, and therefore lose weight if kept long.

Cloves have sometimes a portion of their oil extracted, which gives them a pale, thin, shriveled appearance, altho they may be freshened up by rubbing with a little oil or passed off by mixing with good cloves. Cloves that have been tampered with have a good proportion of their heads or knobs off; altho another cause for headless cloves is that they may have been gathered when too ripe.

Pure oil of cloves is almost colorless, with a faint yellow tinge and the strong smell and burning taste of cloves. When old it turns to a reddish brown color. It has a greater specific gravity than water, in which it will sink.

Clove stalks and mother cloves are used in the manufacture of ground cloves and mixed spices. In Brazil the flower-buds of the tree whose bark furnishes cloves cassia are often used as substitutes for true cloves. The clove tree attracts so much moisture that herbage will not grow beneath its branches and the clove of commerce has such an affinity to water that if placed near a vessel of water they will absorb enuf of the moisture in a few hours to appreciably increase their weight. It is said that dealers often take advantage of this to increase the weight of their goods and thus enhance their profits.

A Little Clove History—This spice was well known to the ancients and is mentioned by several Chinese authors as in use under the Han dynasty, B.C. 266 to 220, during which period it was customary for the officers of the court to hold the spice in their mouth before addressing the sovereign, in order that their breath might have an agreeable odor. At this period the clove was called fowl’s tongue spice. In 1265 A.D. the price was 12s per lb. In 1609 a ship of the East India Co., called the Consent, brot 112,000 lbs. to England which was sold at 5s 6d per lb. As was the case with nutmegs, the Dutch attempted to control the business in cloves. With this object in view, they caused all the clove trees to be destroyed except those of the island of Amboyna. The natives of the island were compelled to rear a certain number of plants each year and also to protect the bearing trees. The French, however, found a number of clove trees growing wild in the smaller island, and Poivre, French governor of Mauritius, who obtained the plant from the island of Guebi, introduced the clove tree into that colony in 1770. About 1800 an Arab named Harameli-ben-Selah took some seeds and plants from Boubon to Zanzibar and commenced the cultivation of cloves in that country. The word clove is derived from the Latin clavus nail, Spanish clavo and French clou, owing its nail-like appearance.