other countries, by paying a good price, were always able to obtain it from the natives notwithstanding the decrees of the princes of the country. All through the Portuguese and Dutch periods, cinnamon was the principal source of wealth. The Dutch first tried cultivating it in 1767, thereby occasioning much fear on the part of the native Sinhalese that the cultivation would ruin the cinnamon forest. Previous to this time, in 1506, large trees were found by the Portuguese growing wild and scattered through the interior of Ceylon. The Dutch, after many attempts to restrict the cultivation of it to the Island of Ceylon, passed a law making the removal of the seed from the island a crime punishable by death. The law also provided that persons should be compelled to care for the tree, even if it were on their property, and it further provided that any person discovered in cutting a shrub of cinnamon on the island should have his right hand cut off. This law so retarded planting that up to 1808 or 1809 only 15,000 acres were cultivated. Exportation was restricted to 8,000 bales of 100 pounds each. In 1796, Ceylon was captured by the English. They put an end to these barbarous laws, but a monopoly was continued until 1832. Afterwards the cultivation of the tree was introduced by the Dutch into their own islands and the Malay Peninsula, an act which would have been much more creditable to the Dutch had they tried this means earlier, instead of warring with other countries. It is estimated that the world’s production of true cinnamon does not exceed 400,000,000 pounds, while an equal amount of cassia is collected chiefly in China and the East Indies. Cinnamon is not an article which enters into the daily food of the masses of the people, and the consumption does not increase with a low price or decrease when the price is high. The present consumption does not equal one pound to each 500 inhabitants of the earth. Cinnamon and cassia blume are the barks of several species of genus cinnamomum (natural order lauroceæ) and the true cinnamon, with which cassia is often compounded, is produced by cinnamomum Zeylanicum, formerly called Laurus, which is a member of the laurel family (French, _Cannele de Ceylon_; German, _Zimmt Ceylon_, _Zimmt Kaneel_; Arabic name, _Kinsman_).