138 SPICES 



CHAP. 



than ^ per cent. In Penang, I understand, the disease is very 

 prevalent, so as seriously to affect the crop. 



The measures taken to eradicate the disease, and 

 their failure. " Three years ago, on first noticing this 

 disease, and thinking it might- owe its cause to the 

 ordinary aphis which often attacks the trees, I ordered 

 one in particular, about ten years old, to be limed by 

 washing the branches and stem with lime-water. That 

 failed. 



2nd. " Thinking it might proceed from a stiff cold 

 soil and defective nutriment I had the ground well dug 

 all round the tree, a drain made to carry off any water 

 that might have lodged round the roots, while I manured 

 deeply and top-dressed with cow- dung and burnt earth ; 

 but that failed. The leaves put on a most healthy deep- 

 green hue, the fruit were abundant, but as they matured 

 the disease showed itself as before." 



3rd. He scrubbed and washed the branches and 

 stem with an infusion of Tuba-root mixed with sulphur 

 and Bengal soap, but that had no effect. 



4th. He tried cutting the tree down close to the 

 ground, but when the plant recovered and fruited the 

 disease reappeared in full force, and finally he cut down 

 the tree, dug out the roots, and planted another one, 

 which was healthy. 



He notes that the disease is not contagious, as he 

 has not noticed the trees adjacent to those affected to 

 be in the slightest degree touched. 



CULTIVATION AREAS 



The home of the nutmeg and its earliest cultivation 

 area lay in the Moluccas, as has been already stated in 

 the history of the spice, and to this day a very large 

 amount of nutmegs and mace is received from the 

 Dutch islands. 



Warburg gives the following figures of bearing trees 

 in the Dutch East Indies : 



