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Cultivation of Nutmegs and Cloves in Bencoolen. 



X 



nutmegs, as the home dealers call them, mixed with cloves as in 

 experiment No. 4, are highly esteemed in England, and even 

 preferred by some to the limed produce; most probably from 

 the greater facility of detecting the flaws in them in their naked 

 state. 



Ahhongh the clove tree attains great perfection in the red 

 mould of these districtSj it is more partial to a less tenacious soil. 

 Its cultivation has been established for many years in the West 

 Indies and at Bourbon, and is of secondary importance only. 

 The mother cloves are planted in rich mould at the distance of 

 twelve inches from each other, screened from the sun and duly 

 watered. They germinate within five weeks, and when four 

 feet high are to be transplanted at intervals of thirty feet, with a 

 small admixture of sand with the red mould so as to reduce its 

 tenacity; and to be cultivated in the same mode as the nutmegs 



only that when full grown they require less manure in the pro- 



portion of one-third. They yield generally at the age of six 

 years, and at that of twelve are in their highest state of bearing, 

 when the average produce may be estimated at six or seven 

 pounds of marketable fruit each tree during the harvest, which 

 lakes place in the rainy months, but with us they have hitherto 

 borne two crops in three years only. The fruit is terminal and 

 when of a reddish hue is plucked by hand, so that the process of 

 gathering it is tedious. It is then dried for several days on mats 

 in the sun, until it breaks easily between the fingers, and assumes 

 a dark brown color. It loses about 60 per cent, in drying. When 

 past its prime the clove tree has a ragged and uncombed appear- 

 ance, and I am led to suppose that its existence is limited to 

 twenty years, unless in very superior soil, in which it may drag 

 out a protracted and unprofitable state of being to the period of 

 perhaps twenty-four years- Hence it becomes necessary to plant 

 a succession of seedhngs when the old trees have attained eight 

 years of age, and this octennial succession must be steadily kept 

 in view. 



With reference to the number of laborers, cattle and ploughs 

 necessary for a plantation of 1000 nutmeg and clove trees, after 

 the ground has been thoroughly cleared of underwood and stumps 

 of trees, I consider that seven Chinese or active Bengalee labor- 

 ers, fifty head of cattle and two ploughs, would be sufficient for 

 all the purposes of the cultivation, with the exception of collect- 

 ing the clove harvest, which, being a very tedious process, would 

 require an extra number of hands; and indeed the best plan 

 would be to gather it in by contract. 



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