Cultivation of Nutmegs and Cloves in Bencoolen. 325 



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annual harvest is the fittest time for pruning the trees. After the 

 eradication of the lallang, the growth of innoxious grasses is to 

 be encouraged in the intervals between the trees, which will give 

 the plantation the appearance of a park, and the plough is now to 

 be abandoned. 



The nutmeg tree is monoecious as well as dicecious, but no 

 ^ means of discovering the sexes before the period of inflorescence 



are yet known. The relative proportion of male and female trees 

 to each other is also undefined, and is indeed the result of chance. 

 Setting aside however ail pretension to mathematical precision, the 

 number of productive trees may be roundly estimated at two-thirds 

 ; of the whole cultivation. As the monoscious plants are produc- 



tive, the number of male trees necessary to be retained will depend 

 entirely on that of the monoecious kind; all above this number, 

 being considered superfluous, should be cut down and other trees 

 planted in their stead. Were 1 indeed to originate a nutmeg plant- 

 ation now, I should either attempt to procure grafts ox\ 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 establish- 

 ing a regular polygamy, by which means the plantation would 



S 



consist of mono3cious trees only; or I should place the youn^ 

 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- The 

 sex might thus be ascertained on an average within the fourth 

 year, and the trees removed to the plantation and systematically 

 arranged, whereas in the usual mode of proceeding it is not as- 

 certainable in general 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 

 ^t its greatest productiv^eness. It is said to continue proHfic for 

 seventy or eighty years in the Moluccas, but our experience car- 

 ries us no farther than twenty-two and a half years, all the trees 

 jf which age that have been properly managed, are still in the 

 Ii^ghest degree of vigor and fecundity; and for this reason no 

 term for planting a succession oi^ trees can as yet be fixed upon. 

 Seven months in general elapse between the appearance of the 

 olossom and ripening of the fruit, and the produce of one bearing 

 tree with another under good cultivation may, in the fifteenth 

 year of the plantation, be calculated at five pounds of nutmegs, 

 ^^id a pound and a quarter of mace. I have observed, however, 

 that some trees produce every year a great quantity of fruit, 

 ^vhilst others constantly give very little. It bears all the year 

 round, but more plentifully in some months than in others. The 



Secoxjd Series, Vol, XII, Xo. 36.— Nov., 1851. 42 



