NUTMEGS AXD MACE. 13 



but the number of productive trees may be roughly estimated at 

 two-thirds of the whole cultivatiou. The number of male trees 

 necessary to be retained will depend entirely on that of the female 

 kind ; all above this numl^er, 'being considered superfluous, should 

 be cut down, and other trees planted in their stead." The writer 

 on whose authority this description is given remarks : — " AVere I 

 to originate a nutmeg plantation, I should either attempt to 

 procure grafts of male stocks on such trees as produce the 

 largest and best fruit by the process of inarching, notwithstanding 

 the speculative hypothesis of the graft partaking of the gradual 

 and progressive decay of the parent tree, leaving a branch or two 

 of the stock for the purpose of establishing a regular polygamy, 

 by which means the plantation would consist of monaecious trees 

 only ; or I should place the young plants in the nursery at the 

 distance of four feet from each other, and force them to an early 

 discovery of their sex, by lifting them out of their beds once a 

 year and replacing them in the same spot, so as to check the 

 growth of wood and viviparous branches. Tlie sex might be thus 

 ascertained on an average within the fourth vear, and the trees 

 removed to the plantation and systematically arranged, whereas 

 in the usual mode of proceeding it is not generally ascertainable 

 before the seventh year." 



Upon an average the nutmeg tree fruits at the age of seven 

 years, and increases in produce till the fifteenth year, when it is 

 at its greatest productiveness. It is said to continue prolific for 

 seventy or eighty years in the Moluccas. Seven months in 

 general elapse between the appearance of the blossom and the 

 ripening of the fruit, and the average produce, under good 

 cultivation, may, in the fifteenth year of the plantation, be 

 calculated at five pounds of nutmegs and a pound and a quarter 

 of mace. It is remarked, however, that some trees produce every 

 year a great C[uantity of fruit, whilst others constantly give very 

 little. It bears all the year round, l3ut more plentifully in some 

 months than in others. The great harvest may generally be 

 looked for in the months of September, October, XoA'ember and 

 December, and a small one in April, May and Jane. Like other 

 fruit trees on this portion of Sumatra, it yields most abundantly 

 every other year. The fruit having ripened, the outer integument 

 bursts spontaneously, and is gathered by means of a hook attached 

 to a long stick, and the mace being cautiously stripped off and 



