SI 



SPICES. 



tree, so well had the Pinch guarded the Ilespcrides 

 of the Moluccas. A wild species of tlie nutmeg tree 

 has been discovered on the Andaman Islands ami, it has 

 been asserted also, on some island fy'mg oil' the west 

 coast of Africa. In the Moluccas, a wild species is 

 generally bond in the vicinity pf the real one, and it 

 often served as a guide to the Dutch fore^t-rangi rs, 

 when an attempt was made by that nation to c\iii^ 

 pate from most of those islands the true clove and 

 nutmeg lro<>. "( he jh.] k \ v»ii>vain: f>r nature assert- 

 ed Jiei? rights, and the deep woods were soon again re- 

 plenished from the seed -which had been scattered about. 



A wild kind grows also on \\u Malabar hills, and 

 as Mr. Crawfurd has remarked, in Cochin-china, and 

 New Holland. According to him, there are eight va- 

 rieties of this tree, ft would he unseicut ific and un bo- 

 tanical were it to he inferred, from these facts, that the 

 clove iree and true vaiieties of the genus rnyristica 

 might he raised at all of the places above named ; lor 

 the varieties of a genua of plants are often found under 

 most dissimilar climates and latitudes. 



The cultivation of tfie true nutmeg ant) clove tree 

 began nearly about the same time at Beucoolen and 

 IV'nnug, and tiie greater success which attended it :«i 

 the former Settlement than at the latter, was no doubt, 

 ow ing to the fact above alluded to, of Penan£ Laving 

 been thenaa mercantile rather than a cultivating 

 community. 



There are, however, several yarigtieq of the culli- 

 vnteff nutmeg on Penaug, distinguished from each 

 other by the tinge of the leaf and shape of (he nut. 

 In some, the former is small and light in color, in 

 others, dark and large. In one, the nut is 01 tl 01 egg* 

 shaped, each nut hanging on a tendril of four or five 

 inches in length: in another, it resembles a small peach; 

 and in a third, it is small and nearly circular. 



