THE NUTMEG TREK 



487 



In a favourable season the pimento crop is 

 enormous. " A single tree has been known to 

 yield one hundred and fifty pounds of the raw- 

 fruit, or one hundred weight of the dried spice ; 

 there being commonly a loss in weight of about 

 one-third in curing." This return is not, how- 

 ever, of very usual occurrence, as the produce is 

 variable; a very plenteous harvest seldom occur- 

 ring above once in five years. This spice is 

 chiefly imported from Jamaica, hence the name 

 Jamaica pepper. 



Pimento also combines the flavour and pro- 

 perties of many of the oriental spices, hence its 

 popular name of all-spice. 



The Nutmeo Tkee (myrisdca moseJiata). 

 Natural family, myrislicK; dicecia, monadelpMa, 



of Linnaeus. This tree attains the height of 

 thirty feet, producing numerous branches. The 

 bark of the trunk is a reddish brown, that of the 

 young branches is of a bright green colour. The 

 leaves are nearly elliptical, pointed, undulated, 

 obliquely nerved; on the upper side, of a bright 

 green, on the under, whitish; the male and female 

 flowers are on dififerent trees. 



The flowers of both are small, white, bell- 

 shaped, and without any calyx ; the embryo 

 fniit appearing at the bottom of the female 

 flower, in the form of a little reddish knob. The 

 female flowers grow on slender peduncles, two 

 or three together, but it is rare that more than 

 one flower in each bunch comes to maturity and 

 produces fruit ; this resembles in appearance and 

 size a small peach, but it is rather more pointed 

 at both ends. The outer coat is about half an 

 inch thick when ripe, at which time it bursts at 

 the side and discloses the spices. These are — 



The Mace, having the appearance of a leafy 

 net-work of a fine red colour, which seems the 

 brighter by being contrasted with the shining 

 black of the shell that it surrounds. In general, 

 the more brilliant its hue, the better is its qua- 

 lity. This is laid to dry in the shade for a short 

 space ; but if dried too much, a great part of its 

 flavour is lost by evaporation, while it is also 



more apt to break in packing. On the crther 

 hand, if packed too moist, it either ferments or 

 breeds worms. After being dried, it is packed 

 in bags and pressed together very tightly. 



The Nutmeg. The shell is larger and harder 

 than that of a filbert, and could not, in the state 

 in which it is gathered, be broken without injur- 

 ing the nut. On that account the nuts are suc- 

 cessively dried in the sun, and then by fire-heat, 

 till the kernel shrinks so much as to rattle in the 

 shell, which is then easily broken. After this, 

 the nuts are three times soaked in sea-water and 

 lime ; they are then laid in a heap, where they 

 heat, and get rid of their superfluous moisture 

 by evaporation. This process is pursued to pre- 

 serve the substance and flavour of the nut, as 

 well as to destroy its vegetative power. Dry 

 lime is the best package for nutmegs. 



There are two varieties, the royal and the 

 green. The royal is the largest, and it produces 

 mace longer than the nut ; on the nut of the 

 green the mace only reaches half-way down. A 

 good nutmeg should be large, round, and heavy, 

 of a light gray colour, and finely marbled in the 

 cross section. 



Oil of nutmegs is obtained by pressure from 

 the broken kernels ; a pound of them generally 

 yields three ounces of oil. According to Neu- 

 mann's experiments, the oil produced is one 

 third of the weight of nutmeg ; it is yellow, of 

 the consistence of tallow, and of a pleasant smell. 

 This is a fixed oil, but a transparent volatile oil 

 may likewise be obtained by distillation, in the 

 proportion of one thirty-second part of the weight 

 of nutmeg used. 



The nutmeg is likewise a native of the Mol- 

 uccas, and after the possession of these islands 

 by the Dutch, was, like the clove, jealously 

 made an object of strict monopoly. Actuated 

 by this narrow-minded policy, the Dutch endea- 

 voured to extfrpate the nutmeg-tree from all the 

 islands except Banda ; but it is said that the 

 wood-pigeon has often been the unintentional 

 means of thwarting this monopolizing spirit, by 

 conveying and dropping the fruit beyond these 

 limits ; thus disseminated, the plant has been 

 always more widely diff'used than the clove. 

 This tree grows in several islands in the Eastern 

 ocean, in the southern part of both peninsulas 

 of India, and it has been introduced into the 

 Mauritius, and some other places. It was for a 

 long time supposed that though the plant could 

 be transplanted, the peculiar aroma of the nut, 

 which gives to the tree its commercial value, was 

 weakened, if not entirely lost, when this was 

 removed from its native soil, and that as a spice- 

 producing tree, it, as well as the clove, was con- 

 fined to the same narrow locality to which the 

 clove was said to be restricted. In Sumatra, 

 however, it has been successfully cultivated to a 

 large extent. Sir Thomas Rafiles gives an 



