have flowered. We find that the healthiest trees do not bear so early as the medium ones, but go on 

 making wood. Judging very roughly, I should say 60 per cent, are male trees. 



I have no objection to your making any use you like of the information, indeed I think we ought 

 to take a little more trouble to let you have information, but the world seems to go along so fast, that 

 there is time for very little outside our work. 



Yours, &c, W. Eloin Sant. 



Mt. Stewart, Ramble P.O. 

 May 2nd, 1892. 



Dear Sir, 



Yours of 19th April received. I have been away from home for the last two weeks or would have 

 replied earlier. 



Dr. Nicholls has certainly made a mistake in saying Nutmegs will not do at a higher elevation 

 than I,0u0 ft., for the trees here bear very well, in fact two years ago two of the troes bore so heavily 

 that they suffered and I believe that we are between 1,2 and 1,300 ft. The Hon. Evelyn Ellis I am 

 told made the gate at the road turning in, — 1,250 ft. by his aneroid that had been set a few days before 

 at sea level. Some years ago Mr. Scharschmidt got a lot of the nuts from me for planting at Hanbury 

 in Manchester. I have not met him for the last two years but when I saw him last he said that 60 out 

 of every 100 nuts were growing well and his place must be much higher than this. 



Mr. George Dewar of Harmony Hall, Duncans P. O., has also some growing well in the buck 

 lands of Trelawny but at what elevation I can't say. 



Yours, &c, R. H. Robertson. 



NUTMEGS IN BANDA. 



As over 20,000 Nutmeg plants have been sold during the past year for planting in Jamaics, it 

 will doubtless be interesting to those who are cultivating them, to read the following descriptions of 

 Banda, the Nutmeg Island of the East Indies. 



" Banda is a lovely little spot, its three islands enclosing a secure harbour from whence no outlet 

 is visible, and with water so transparent, that living corals and even the minutest objects are plainly 

 seen on the volcanic sand at a depth of seven or eight fathoms. The ever smoking volcano rears its 

 bare cone on one side, while the two larger islands are clothed with vegetation to the summit of the 

 hills. 



" Going on shore, I walked up a pretty path which le^ds to the highest point of the island on 

 which the town is situated, where there is a telegraph station and a .miXwjiifipflvA^'h^iveV.-bouiiuea On 

 one side by the old Portuguese fort. Beyond, about half a mile distant lies the larger island in 

 ?he shape of a horseshoe ; formed of a range of abrupt hill, covered w.th fine forest and nutmeg gar- 

 dens • while close opposite the town is the volcano, forming a nearly perfect cone, the lower part only 

 covered with a light green bushy vegetation. On its north side the outline is more uneven, and there 

 fa a Sight hollow or chasm about one-fifth of the way down, from which constantly issue two columns 

 of smoke, as well as a good deal from the rugged surface around and from some spots nearer the sum- 

 mit A white efflorescent, probablv sulphur, is thickly spread over the upper part of the mountain, 

 marked by the narrow black vertical lines of water gal ies. The smoke unites as it rises, and forms a 

 dense cloud, which in calm damp weather spreads out into a wide canopy hiding the top of the moun- 

 tain. At night and early in the morning it often rises up straight and leaves the whole outline 



° ear '» The 'summit of the small island is composel of a highly crystalline basalt ; lower down I found 

 a hard stratified slaty sandstone, while on the beach are huge blocks of lava and scattered masses o 

 white coralline limestone. The larger island has coral rock to a he.ght of three or four hundred feet 

 while above is lava and basalt. It seems probable therefore, that this little group of our islands is 

 the fragment of a larger district which was perhaps one; connected with Ceram, but which was sepa- 

 rated and broken up by the same forces which formed the volcanic c>:i3. \V .ion I mited th* larger 

 island on another occasion, I saw a considerable tract covered with larg. forest trees d3ad, but still 

 standing. This was a record of the last great earthquake only two years ago «rhan the sea broke in 

 over this part of the island and so flooded it as to destroy the vegetation on all the lowlands Almost 

 every year there is an earthquake here, and at intervals of a few years very severe ones, which thro.v 

 down houses and carry ships out of ihe harbour bodily into the streets. - 



« Notwithstanding the losses incurred by these terrific visitations and the sin ill stzo and :s dated 

 position of these little islands, they have been and is still are of considerable value to the Dutch Go- 

 vernment as the chief nutmeg-garden in the world. Almost the whole surface is planted with nut- 

 mees grown under the shade of lofty Kanary trees (Kanarium commune). The light volanic soil, 

 the shade and the excessive moisture of these islands, where it rains more or less every month in the 

 vear seem exactly to suit the nutmeg-tree, which requires no manure and scarcely any attention. All 

 the year round flowers and ripe fruit are to be found and none of those diseases occur which under a 

 forced and unnatural system of cultivation have ruined the nutmeg planters of bingapore and Leiiaug 

 "Few cultivated plants are more beautiful than nutmeg-trees. They are handsomely shaped and 

 elossv-leaved, growing to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and bearing small yellowish flowers. 

 The fruit is the size and colour of a peach, but rather oval. It is of a tough fleshy consistence, but 

 when ripe splits open, and shows the dark-brown nut within, covered with the crimson mace, and is 

 then a most beautiful object. Within the thin hard shell of the nut is the seed, which is the nutmeg 

 of commerce. The nuts are eaten by the large pigeons of Banda, which digest the mace but cast up 

 the nut with its seed uninjured."— Malay Archipelago. By A. li. Wallace. 



