300 JOURNAL OP THE TRINIDAD 



least all that have hitherto seriously been considered suitable, 

 are few in number, and I shall refer to them briefly. 



Nutmegs. — These trees are very sparsely cultivated here at 

 present, and are well worth a great deal more attention than is 

 bestowed on them. One great reason of their present scarcity is 

 no doubt the fact that they take so long a time to come into 

 bearing — beginning about the seventh year at the earliest ; and 

 a second perhaps is that any nutmegs hitherto shipped from this 

 island have not brought very satisfactory prices. The cause of 

 this is that nutmegs sell at so much a pound of so many of such 

 a size, and I have never seen an}' nutmegs grown in Trinidad 

 that came up to the average of middle sized Grenada ones, 

 which is about " 90 to 80 per lb., 2/1 to 2/5." I do not think 

 our soil is to be blamed for this, but the fact that the seed 

 disseminated here has not been carefully selected ; both plants 

 and seed of the very best and largest kinds can easily be obtained 

 in Grenada. I know of an instance in Grenada where nutmegs 

 were successfully planted among young cacao, and the cacao was 

 beginning to be cut away to give more room to the bearing 

 nutmegs when I saw it. For Trinidad, however, I think any 

 cacao planter who is suitably located, and makes up his mind to 

 put part of his land in coffee, would do very good business, if he 

 planted up nutmegs from selected seed about 30 feet to 40 feet 

 apart among his coffee. For the rest, a method of rapid propa- 

 gation of nutmegs, has, I believe, yet to be discovered. But it 

 would be a discovery fraught with such value and benefit to the 

 planting community that it would be well worth while 

 for the Agricultural Society to offer a substantial bonus 

 for the discovery of a satisfactory mode of rapid propagation of 

 Nutmeg trees by any species of grafting or layering. Porter, 

 in his " Tropical Agriculturist " says they are capable of propa- 

 gation by layer, but it does not appear to have been a satisfactory 

 process, else it would now be extensively used, and about 50 years 

 ago Dr. Otley of Singapore is said to have succeeded in grafting 

 some by approach. But the local wild nutmeg (If. sebifera) 

 which is common in the woods, near Cunupia, for instance, is 

 said to be a quick growing plant, seedlings of it could be easily 

 obtained in large numbers, and the grafting of these nutmegs 

 on them by ' budding ' or ' approach,' seems to me a very 

 promising line of experiment. 



Cloves. The clove trees, though introduced to the "West 

 Indies as long ago as 1795, never seems to have taken hold as a 

 staple cultivation here although plants of it have been long in the 

 Botanic Gardens. But now there is a special reason, in addition 

 to our need of new objects of culture, for drawing attention to it, 

 that is the fact that the greatest modern commercial source of 

 clove production, is the Sultanat of Zanzibar on the East coast 



