NUTMEGS AND MACE 117 



ture of 110, and even higher. This cannot be beneficial 

 to the growth of the plant. 



It is, however, advisable in any case to keep the 

 ground clear of weeds around the young plants, and to 

 see that climbers do not strangle them, and that they 

 get sufficient light. Hart recommends weeding up to 

 the twentieth year, and after that considers it unneces- 

 sary. A good deal has been written, of late, as to the 

 effects of the poisons excreted by grass roots (the root- 

 toxins) on other plants grown in the same soil. A 

 good deal more research is wanted in this direction, but 

 even if the root-toxins did delay the growth or injure 

 the tree to some extent, the injury caused by rain- wash 

 and denudation of the soil, and exposure of the young 

 roots to the excessive heat of the sun, cannot be ignored, 

 and the question resolves itself into the choice of two 

 evils. 



If clean weeding is practised the weeds should not 

 be removed from the ground, as that entails a loss of 

 potash, sodium, and nitrogen, which will have to be 

 replaced in the form of manure. They should be rotted 

 down in a pit, with dead leaves, sticks, etc., and re- 

 applied to the tree as a mulch, or they may be burnt 

 and the ash utilised. 



Manuring. In 1860, when the great collapse of the 

 nutmeg plantations occurred in the Straits Settlements, 

 the cause of the disease was attributed by Mr. Jos 

 d' Almeida, in Collingwood's article, to over-manuring. 

 The trees were said to have been unnaturally forced by 

 digging trenches too closely around the spongioles (i.e. 

 the young root-ends), and by too rich and long continued 

 manuring, by which heavy crops had been obtained, 

 but which at last exhausted the trees. To a certain 

 extent this was corroborated by the fact that in Penang, 

 where the planters were rich and could afford much 

 manure, the destruction when the disease came was 

 more complete than in the plantations of the poorer 

 owners in Malacca. 



This, however, had probably little to do with the 



