SPICES 



CHAP. 



not only to conduct the necessary experiments, but to 

 make his profits at the same time. Fortunately there 

 was one man, David Brown, who persevered in the 

 cultivation of spices, and after his death his son 

 George continued the work with such spirit and judg- 

 ment that, after thirty years of trial, the cultivation 

 was established on a sound and profitable basis. 



In 1818 the productive nutmeg trees on the island 

 were estimated at 6900, and in 1836 Captain James 

 Low writes that there were upwards of thirty spice 

 plantations in Penang and Province Wellesley. The 

 biggest of these contained 20,000 trees, and the whole 

 of the estates comprised some 80,000 trees, of which 

 more than half were fully developed and fruiting. 

 The gross annual produce was estimated at 130,000 Ib. 

 weight. 



The Court of Directors in 1803 desired that every 

 encouragement should be given to the Penang spice 

 planters, as Dr. Koxburgh had in the previous year ex- 

 pressed his opinion that this was " the most eligible spot 

 of all the East India Company's possession for spice 

 cultivation." The Penang planters meanwhile com- 

 plained of the duties imposed on their produce, and 

 also desired that the Dutch merchants of Batavia should 

 be prevented from taking advantage of the difference in 

 the taxation of British grown nutmegs and foreign 

 spices, by shipping their produce to Singapore and 

 Malacca, and thence to England and Bengal, to save the 

 extra duty of a shilling a pound imposed on foreign 

 spice. 



Even at this early period the superiority of the 

 Penang nutmegs and mace over those of the Dutch 

 islands (then chiefly Amboyna) was observed by the 

 London dealers, a reputation which Penang and Pro- 

 vince Wellesley maintain to this day. 



From 1836 onwards the cultivation increased steadily 

 till 1866, when the trees were badly diseased and the 

 industry suffered severely. 



After the founding of Singapore in 1819, Raffles 



